Five Years Later
by Demigod
Summary: It's a dark night, as snow falls across Jump City. Changeling watches the darkened city pass by, on patrol with Cyborg. He doesn't yet know what discovery that tonight will lead him to, and the changes it will bring. Mild RavenBB. Dark future. COMPLETE
1. Changeling

A/N: This story is odd for my style of writing. It's a bit depressing. Anyway, I just wrote it as an experiment in style. It will probably remain a one shot. BB/Raven hinting towards the end, but it's just hinting so far. Enjoy, and comments are well appreciated.

* * *

"Dude, all I'm saying is that this is boring." Changeling rested his chin in his hand as he stared out the window of the T-car. The snow was falling steadily outside, as they passed the darkened shops and boarded up windows of the old docks district.

Cyborg worked the grip of the steering wheel a bit, his own boredom at the monotony of the patrol obvious. "Yeah, patrolling is never fun, B. You know if we find somethin' you won't be bored."

Changeling didn't respond. They had this conversation, varying only in slight degrees, every night. It always ended poorly, and Changeling didn't feel the need to rush it. A yellow-orange light spilling from an alleyway denoted another barrel fire, with the poor and disenfranchised inhabitants of this area warming their hands in the warmth of the burning refuse. Changeling sighed.

"This place has really gone downhill. I mean, we used to buy food over there." Changeling didn't really gesture, but was looking towards a ransacked grocery that had sold imported food. Raven always bought her strange tea blends there, and Robin occasionally purchased more eastern delicacies in the place as well.

Cyborg didn't answer, his grip on the wheel tightening slightly. Changeling kept talking, despite the growing feeling in his gut that he should shut his mouth. "I wonder if you can even get good herbal tea in Jump City any more. Let alone sushi. Even tofu is kinda hard to find."

"You don't even drink herbal tea or eat sushi."

"Yeah, yeah, but they did." Changeling sighed again. "Why do we patrol around here anyway? There's nothing left to steal. I mean, there hasn't even been any major crime down here since-"

Changeling stopped himself, but it was too late. Cyborg's voice was angry. "Since what? Go ahead and say it B."

Turning towards Cyborg, Changeling waved his arms defensively. "Hey, c'mon, I was just talking."

"Since the HIVE kids robbed the Xenothium vault. That's what you meant, right?"

Changeling sighed. Crap. "Yeah, since that. Look, I know it was-"

"It was an accident! It wasn't my fault, all right? You know that. She was dancin' around, I didn't see her going that way!" Cyborg was shouting now, an unbearably loud sound in the relatively small car.

Though he knew it was pointless, Changeling tried to defuse the situation. "I know! No one blames you for it! I don't even think Jinx-" The name slipped out before he could stop it.

The car screeched to a halt, slipping slightly on the snow despite the high-traction tires. Cyborg's voice was icy. "Get out."

"C'mon, Cy, I di-"

"You don't say her name. Get out."

The T-Car sped off into the darkness and snow, as Changeling stood on the side of the street, watching his friend drive away. He rubbed his arms with his hands, the cold night already creeping through his old Doom Patrol uniform. Not wanting to be bothered by the local inhabitants, he changed form quickly, taking flight as an eagle, despite the cold getting worse as he gained altitude.

The falling snow kept visibility short, but he knew the way well enough anyway. He shouldn't have mentioned the HIVE kids. He knew that Cyborg regretted that day, and the accident that had happened. Still, he should have put it behind him by now, it had been two years. Changeling flew idly around the area, half watching the T-Car continue the patrol, and half just passing time until Cyborg cooled off.

Cyborg pounded his fist into the steering wheel, and the sizable dent that he created only served to make him angrier. It hadn't been his fault. He'd been aiming for Mammoth. It wasn't his fault, and Changeling should have known it. Why wouldn't he stop mentioning it? Cyborg sighed, having difficulty staying angry at someone who wasn't even present. He allowed his mind to think back to the accident.

The Docks district had already been crumbling at that point, and the security was getting worse, while the goods stored were remaining the same. Seeing the chance for some higher profits than robbing convenience stores, the HIVE kids had invaded a local warehouse. Their goal was the new shipment of weapons-grade Xenothium, nearly four cubic meters of the stuff. It would have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market.

Cyborg and Changeling, still Beastboy at the time, met them there. The silent alarm had tripped a few minutes into the theft, and summoned them. It was, by all appearances, going to be the normal battle between the groups. Jinx, Mammoth, and Gizmo trying to bring their greater number to bear against the somewhat more experienced Cyborg and Beastboy. Everything had been going fine, until...

Jinx had a strange style of fighting. She tended to do a lot of dancing around, lots of wasted energy and unpredictable movement. Mammoth was incredibly tough, and had only gotten more so with age. Cyborg had been aiming at Mammoth, with a sonic blast intended to knock him unconscious, to speed up the fight. Beastboy had been occupied with Gizmo at the time, and couldn't have seen it coming. Jinx, firing her magical bolts at Beastboy, was dodging around wildly. Cyborg had fired, and Jinx wasn't watching where she was going.

Mammoth could have taken it. He should have been the one to be hit. It would have knocked him flat on his back, sure, but he would have been fine. Jinx was so small, and so thin. She wasn't Mammoth, and she couldn't handle the same kind of attack.

Cyborg chased her face out of his mind. His memory, electronic in nature, remembered everything in perfect detail, without affording him the control to delete it. He could still see her face as the blast hit her. He could still count the milliseconds before her facial muscles stopped tensing, and it had been over. Anyone else, anyone with a human mind and perception, would have said it was over in an instant, that she had felt no pain. Cyborg could see it though. For nineteen milliseconds, her face wore a look of shock, as her body broke under the sonic energy. Nineteen milliseconds of feeling her life fade from her.

Cyborg slammed his fist into the dash again, venting his frustration on the car. It hadn't been his fault! Mammoth could have taken it.

It wasn't his fault.

* * *

Changeling saw the car vibrate as Cyborg violently crushed the dashboard. Knowing now that Cyborg would shortly give up the patrol and return to their home to repair the vehicle, Changeling realized that he had to waste a few hours alone before he could return as well, sneaking inside and sleeping in his bed without seeing Cyborg somewhere on the way.

He tilted his body, turning as he glided through the air. Flying aimlessly through the night was calming in a way, the wind rushing through his feathers and the lights of the city shining ahead of him. The docks were dark and desolate, but the city core still had life at night, despite the cold weather that had taken hold since last year.

Changeling flew idly between the tall buildings of downtown Jump City, not really looking at anything in particular. Traffic horns blared far below, and the voices of late-night shoppers drifted upwards on the wind. Changeling halted his flight, landing on a small ledge of a building, and changing back into human form, sitting on the ledge and looking over the city.

He leaned against the concrete shell of the office building, looking up at the dark sky, the snow gently falling past him. It was a peaceful night, but Changeling couldn't take much pleasure in it. Cyborg was angry, and would be until tomorrow morning at the earliest, and Changeling really had no one else to talk to.

Suddenly, his silent thoughts were shaken by an explosion from inside the building. Changeling jumped slightly, lost his balance, and fell for two stories before he was able to change into a bird and light once more on the ledge. Not certain that he could handle combat alone, he didn't rush inside blindly. A moment later, it became obvious that he shouldn't have done so anyway.

A window, five stories below him, exploded outwards in a shower of tempered glass. A slender male figure, easily recognizable as Red X, jumped from it, gliding upwards as the jets on his feet fired. Directly following him, Mammoth lept out of the building as well. Lacking the technological abilities of Red X, Mammoth put more horizontal motion into the jump, crashing through the window of building across the street, and running out of sight. Gizmo followed X more directly, flying upwards with his jetpack.

Changeling backed away from the trio, not wanting to be spotted. He quickly changed into a pigeon, hoping that they wouldn't notice his green color and simply leave him alone. Though his new form wouldn't allow it, he would have smiled as he saw that the trio of villains had larger concerns anyway.

A green flash signified Starfire's presence, as starbolts flew from below, forcing Gizmo and Red X to slow their ascent in favor of dodging. Beastboy's keen eyes also spotted the black and blue costume of Nightwing as he swung from a de-cel line, tucking and rolling into the hole that Mammoth had created, pursuing the nearly invulnerable man despite his own lack of powers.

Taking flight, to better watch the battle, Changeling looked upwards. Starfire seemed more capable than ever, with Red X and Gizmo having no luck dodging her rain of starbolts. She had changed as she had aged. Her hair was longer, falling nearly to the back of her knees, and her figure was much more muscular, as well as more adult. Her costume was no longer the simple skirt and top that it had been, instead more akin to her old Tamaranian armor, with large metal bracers and plated promethium across her body. Changeling almost couldn't imagine her as the same girl he'd known when he was a Titan. As Changeling watched, Gizmo's dodging attempts finally failed, his jetpack exploding in a mass of sparks and burning jetfuel, causing him to fall out of the air. Starfire didn't seem to take notice, instead continuing after Red X, who was still escaping.

Changeling decided to risk it, quickly becoming a pterodactyl, swooping gracefully across the sky and clutching the panicked Gizmo in his talons. Rising with difficulty though the freezing air, Changeling tossed the diminutive villain to the rooftop of the building, trusting the collision with the icy structure to stun him long enough for Starfire to take care of it.

Starfire landed nearby, holding the unconscious Red X. Changeling lit on the edge of the roof, forty feet away, not wanting to tempt fate. He did, however, change quickly back to human form, the chill night making it unwise to stay cold-blooded for long.

Gizmo fell struggled to his feet, but was quickly rendered unconscious by a quick blow from Starfire, who seemed as if she did not want to drag the battle out for the sake of fairness. She dropped Red X near Gizmo, and then looked to Changeling, doubt in her eyes, but in an aggressive stance.

Changeling forced a smile, waving his hands in front of him. "Hey Star, I'm not going to fight you. Just wanted to help, heheh." His nervous laughter sounded weak, even to him.

Starfire visibly relaxed. "I am glad. I did not wish to fight you, and Nightwing is not here to object. I thank you for catching Gizmo."

"No problem. How are things with you two?" Changeling hopped down from the small parapet that surrounded the rooftop, walking towards Starfire. The tense feeling had been diffused by her friendly manner.

Starfire appeared somewhat sad, though she was trying to keep up an appearance of happiness. "Things are fine. Nightwing and I are doing well together. We have been living in a building owned by his... father. It is not so bad. How are you?"

Changeling shrugged, feeling almost like a kid again, next to this tall and powerful-looking woman. "I'm fine. Cyborg and I have a place underground, near the docks. It's not great, but it's ok. He's kinda pissed right now though, so I'm just wasting time."

An electronic ring tone sounded from Starfire's belt, and she pulled the small communicator from it. Nightwing's voice came from the device. "Mammoth is down. You get the other two?"

"I have. Shall we return them to the prison?" Starfire looked at Changeling, and he understood, waving silently and changing into a small bird, flapping his wings and flying away into the night. Sailing upwards, and landing on a nearby precipice, he watched as Starfire flew down to collect Nightwing and Mammoth, then as the two heroes took their defeated foes through the night, northwards to the prison, Starfire carrying Nightwing as well as holding the cable that secured the tied villains. If Nightwing had noticed the small green sparrow, completely out of season as well as the wrong color, he hadn't shown it.

* * *

Changeling took flight again, changing into an arctic gull, and flying out over the bay waters, taking advantage of the winds to carry him with less effort, not wanting to tire himself out too quickly, since he still had plenty of time left to pass. Flying over the dark waters was strange, as there was no point of reference in the blinding snow. It felt as if there was nothing but water and snow for miles.

He'd been circling idly over the water for half an hour before chance brought him close enough to see the glimmer of light through the falling snow. Curious, he turned towards it, not entirely certain where he was in relation to much of anything.

As the glimmer of light grew more distinct, the shadow of the building came through the mist and snow. Changeling's avian eyes narrowed slightly, not really sure why he cared that someone was there, but angry nonetheless. He landed on the rooftop, looking around as he assumed human form again.

The place was in terrible disrepair, the concrete helipad on the rooftop having cracked in dozens of places from the cold weather, and a blast crater still gaping in the darkness on the far side of the platform. Changeling walked towards the roof access door, frowning at the frozen doorknob. He wouldn't be able to get in this way, without forcing it.

Sighing, he turned around, crossing the rooftop to the gaping crater. He still remembered the fight that had caused it, but didn't bother reminiscing at the moment. Looking into the gaping hole, but unable to see much in the darkness, he changed form once more, into a smallish monkey, swinging from the broken roofing, down into the first level of the hole.

He landed on the rusted out floor, thankful that his form wasn't heavy enough to end up falling through it. He looked around, a bit disoriented after having been away for so long. The room was covered in snow, but still recognizable. A computer, long since destroyed, was sitting in the corner, with the recharging cords hanging limply over the broken floor, dangling into the crater. The bed, if you could call it that, was still there, though rusted beyond use as well. Sports trophies, forgotten here during the fight, lay scattered around the floor as well. Cyborg's old room.

Changeling walked on all fours over to the doorway, pressing the button to open it, and not at all surprised when it didn't work. Not willing to become large enough to force it, he looked around, finding an old length of rebar laying nearby. Picking it up, he shattered the ice on the door panel, then pried the covering off, exposing the manual crank. The well-protected machinery still worked, and a few turns of the heavy crank opened the door enough for a mouse to enter, and Changeling became one and did so. More out of respect for the old building than necessity, he closed the door again from the other side.

The hallway was dark and empty, but not as cold without the wind and ice from outside. Changeling became human again, looking around at the disused building. The place seemed fairly sound, despite the long period of abandonment. Still, someone seemed to be living here, from the light that Changeling had seen from outside. The darkness of the night, combined with the time away from the place, had made it difficult to determine exactly where the light was coming from.

Changeling pressed the switch on his belt, causing it to glow slightly, to provide enough light to see by, but only barely. Given the nature of Changeling's powers, it was difficult for even Cyborg to modify his equipment much, and this was the best light he could carry. He walked through the building cautiously, unfamiliarity fading as he saw the old halls pass by.

A door on his left caught his eye, his old name still emblazoned across it in black letters. He pressed the button to open it, and winced at the loud grinding as the half-rusted mechanics activated. The door slid halfway open, then stopped, as Changeling heard a gear snap inside. He slid sideways through the door, then recoiled slightly at the stale smell of rot from inside.

He looked around at the mess of a room, shaking his head at his old habits, not that they were entirely to blame. Somehow, the window had cracked slightly, letting enough moisture into the room over time to enable the deterioration of everything. The old bunk bed's wooden supports had faltered, and the upper bunk had failed on one end, collapsing to the lower one, and making a triangle instead of a square. The clothes strewn all over the floor had long since become nothing but rags, and Changeling spotted a rat as it run from the strange light that came from his belt.

Seeing his old place in such a state was depressing. Changeling stepped across the dingy floor, he looked at his old desk, faded photographs still on the desktop. He smiled slightly at the photo of the Titans and Terra, smiling at the camera innocently. He had been sitting on Cyborg's shoulders, grinning and holding his fingers up as 'rabbit ears' over Raven's head as she hovered nearby, looking irritated. Starfire and Robin were standing next to Cyborg, smiling as well, and standing just a bit closer than simple friends would have. Terra was on the other side of Cyborg, smiling at the camera, her hair having fallen and covering half of her face. They must have gotten some civilian to take the photograph.

* * *

Changeling, suddenly remembering why he was here, put the picture back on the desktop, and cast one more look around the ruined room, before leaving it again. He continued down the hallway, keeping his eyes and ears open for clues to the invader, whoever it might be.

He heard voices up ahead, and sped up his movement, while still taking care to be quiet. He came quickly to the door at the end of the hall, the voices still indistinct behind it. He knew that the door led to the old operations room, and light shone slightly through the center of the door. Changing to a small cat, for the increased auditory sense, and closed his eyes, listening.

Familiar laughter rang out behind the door. A young girl's voice spoke as well, to Changeling's surprise. "Please, you must try my new Glorg! It is wonderful, Robin."

It was Starfire's voice. Well, her voice as it had been years ago. Robin's voice responded, nervousness in it. "Uh, I'm fine, Star. I had a late lunch."

Changeling frowned internally, though the emotion registered more as a snarl from his current form. This was a conversation that the Titans had fairly commonly when they were in existence, but it made no sense happening now.

"Dude! Cy, you can't do that! It's cheating!" Changeling's eyes widened as he heard his own old voice from beyond the door.

No longer waiting to explore this mystery, and irritated by the memories coming to life, Changeling shifted into a large ape, smashing down the door violently, hoping to intimidate whoever was beyond it. The metal twisted free from the door frame, clattering to the floor of the operations room inside, and revealing strange, black caricatures of the old Titans.

They weren't people, they were weird projections of... of Raven's power. As they turned towards Changeling in surprise, he saw the Beastboy on the couch, next to the fake Cyborg, fade. None of the other duplicates seemed to even notice.

"Beastboy? What are you doing?" The fake Robin was acting as if the bowl he was holding wasn't covered in long-uncleaned filth, and was actually full of glorg.

Sitting on the mostly rotted couch was a projected Cyborg, holding half of a Gamestation controller, but acting as it the entire controller was in his hands. "Yo, wasn't I just playin' a game with you? How did you get over there so fast?"

Changeling wasn't really sure how to react, but could easily see which Titan was missing. He changed into a human once more, and turned towards the false Robin. "Where's Raven?"

Robin looked annoyed. "She's in her room. Why did you break the door down?"

Changeling ignored the projection, walking across the room and shifting again into an ape, smashing the other door apart as well, not wanting to waste time with the broken opening mechanisms. As soon as he was out of the room, he heard the false Titans resume their meaningless banter, as if nothing had happened, Cyborg and Beastboy arguing over the nonexistent game, as Robin gagged on the ethereal glorg.

Becoming human again, Changeling ran through the dark hallway, towards the flickering light up ahead. The only fluorescent light still functioning in the tower was the one directly in front of Raven's room, flickering weakly in the darkness.

Changeling forced himself to calm down, unnerved by the mental projections of the Titans in the other room. Raven must still be in the tower. He'd assumed... Well, he and Cyborg had assumed that she had gone back to Azerath, like she'd said she was considering, last time they spoke. Changeling tried to remember. That had been over a year and a half ago.

Not knowing what Raven would think if he just came crashing through the door like a psychopath, Changeling decided to take a more reasonable approach. He reached out, gently knocking on the metal door, which seemed to be in decent condition, unlike anything more than ten feet from it.

"Uh, Raven? Are you in there?" Changeling felt strange even saying her name. It was like going back in time, knocking nervously on her door like this.

He jumped slightly as the door opened only about a foot, showing a girl's pale face in the dimly lit room beyond. If he'd seen her in any other place, he would never have recognized her. She was gaunt, nearly emaciated, her cheekbones standing out starkly from her sunken cheeks and eyes. Her hair hung in long, dirty strands, obviously unwashed for months. Her eyes were dull and uncomprehending, and her hand, holding the door open, looked nearly skeletal. She looked at Changeling for a few moments, as if she didn't recognize him. When she spoke, her voice was raspy, and she sounded tired and weak. "Beastboy?"

Changeling turned his head slightly, skeptical. Raven knew he'd changed his name. "Raven, what are you doing here?"

Raven's expression was familiar, at least. She looked mildly irritated, and her demeanor was condescending, as if he had just asked the most stupidly ignorant question in the world. "It's my room. I'm in here all the time."

Something was wrong with her; something had to be wrong with her. "No, I mean... Uh, hey, you don't look so good. When was the last time you ate?"

The girl looked confused, almost as if her memories didn't make sense. "Starfire cooked... something. It was... there was some meat... it was a few days ago."

Changeling shook his head. "Raven, Starfire doesn't live here. I don't think... I don't think she's been here either. Those people in operations... they aren't real. Come on, let's go get some food or something. You need to get out of here."

Raven shook her head absently. "No, I'm sure of it. She... she cooked something. An animal, it was in her room."

"A rat? You've been eating rats?"

Raven looked confused. "We... we all have. Remember? The food stopped being delivered, and the money ran out. We have to eat something."

Changeling put his hand on the door, pressing it open farther, exposing Raven's tattered old costume, still tightly clinging to her emaciated frame. Her blue cloak was tattered and stained nearly black from years of use. Her body was extremely thin; if she had been eating rats, she hadn't been eating many. She looked nearly dead from starvation. Changeling spoke. "We? Who? You are the only person here."

Raven weakly tried to close the door, but she couldn't match Changeling's strength. "What are you... the Teen Titans. We live here."

"Raven, we all left years ago. Come on, let's go get you something decent to eat. There's a diner just across the bay. I'll carry you." Changeling reached for Raven's hand.

She recoiled slightly, doubt in her eyes. "Wait! Wait... you... you're right. We... don't live here. I live here, but you don't. Why are you here?"

Changeling tried to be nonthreatening. "I'm here because I saw a light on, and I didn't know who would still be in here."

Raven shook her head. "No... you're lying. We... Everyone is still here. They are. We trained yesterday with Robin. You... you tried to get me to play Mega Monkey Four with you on the Gamestation."

"Mega Monkey Four? Raven, no one has a Gamestation anymore. Look, if you don't want to come with me, let me at least bring you something, is that ok? You look hungry."

"Not... glorg." Raven seemed comforted that Changeling was acting a bit more like Beastboy.

Changeling smiled a little, but couldn't be happy, looking at his old friend like this. "Ok, not glorg. I'll get something from that Chinese place nearby, the one you always liked, ok?"

Raven nodded slightly. "I... I can't pay."

Changeling nodded. "It's on me, back in a few minutes. Don't go anywhere, ok?"

At Raven's nod, Changeling shifted to a cheetah, bolting down the hallway, and up the stairs at the end, to the roof access door. Changing again, he smashed the door apart as an ape, and then flew from the tower as a hawk, sailing northwards.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, he landed on the roof again, setting the plastic bag of food down before changing from a bird again to a human. Picking up the food, he continued down the stairs, nervous. Seeing Raven like this, seeing the Tower like this, it was extremely disturbing.

He rushed down the hallway, and saw that Raven's door was still sitting half open. Looking inside, at the old and water-damaged books, Raven was nowhere to be seen. A smell of rotted meat filled the room, and Changeling could see bones of rats and other small animals in the corner. He cringed.

Changeling rushed towards Operations, stepping past the destroyed doors, and finding the room empty, aside from Raven, sitting on the couch, staring blankly forward. Changeling forced himself to calm down, trying to avoid breaking Raven's mind, if it wasn't already broken. "Raven?"

Raven turned her head, looking at him. The grime on her face had become streaked, and it was obvious that she'd been crying. "You came back."

Changeling walked over, setting the bag of food on the coffee table in front of the couch, opening it slowly and pulling the food out, trying to act as if everything was normal. "Of course I did. I told you I would be back."

Raven coughed slightly, and half smiled. "It... smells good. Better than glorg."

"Anything is better than glorg. Here, come on, I got some hot tea also, I'll pour a glass. Eat slowly, I don't know how well your stomach will handle it after having only rat for so long."

Taking the plastic fork that game with the food, Raven stabbed a piece of broccoli in the stir fry, and looked at it a moment before putting it into her mouth, and chewing slowly. Changeling never was able to describe the pleasure that crossed her face at that moment, but he never forgot it. How long had it been since she'd had a hot, civilized meal?

He had purchased two meals, but didn't open his at first, instead simply watching Raven eat for a time, her movement slow and methodical, almost trance-like. He helped her hold her small cup of tea steady as she drank, and the liquid seemed to rejuvenate her.

She ate less than a quarter of the food before her, before she set down her fork. "I'm full. I... I can't eat more. I want to, but I can't."

Changeling nodded, closing the Styrofoam box, and pushing the food away. "Raven, what are you doing here?"

The girl looked around the room, seemingly noticing the ruined state of the building for the first time. "When I left my room, they were all gone again. I... I remember it now. My friends... they aren't here anymore. Except you."

Changeling nodded slowly, not sure how to react. "Raven, we've been gone for years. I don't think you should stay here. Come stay with Cyborg and me, you'll be safer."

Raven didn't seem to notice the suggestion. "I missed you. All of you. Where are Starfire and Robin?"

He took Raven's hand, wincing at how cold it felt, and held it gently. "I don't know, they work mostly downtown these days. Come on, let's go. You can't stay here like this."

She shook her head, but her hand held his tightly. "No, I can't leave. We might... the Titans might need the tower. Someone has to stay here. The Titans might come back."

"Raven, I don't think that's going to happen. Robin and Cyborg... they are pretty dedicated to staying separate."

Changeling felt Raven's hand clench tightly. "No... No, they will come back. You'll see. It will be like before. They will be here. My friends..."

Changeling put his free arm around Raven's shoulders, and pulled her close. She leaned against him, uncharacteristic of the old Raven, and stared forwards silently. They sat quietly, looking out of the large window, watching the snow fall in the darkness outside, points of light in the distance, the snowfall having become light enough to allow the opposite shore to be visible.

Raven shook slightly, and Changeling felt a drop of water land on his chest. The woman in his arms turned slightly, laying her head on his chest, and crying miserably. Changeling held her gently, as she felt so fragile and weak. He spoke quietly. "Shh, shh, come on... It's ok now... I've got you. Don't cry, come on."

The woman's sobbing continued for several minutes, but finally ceased, as she slept against his chest, having pulled herself to sitting on his lap, as if she were a child. Changeling held her, unsure of what else to do. He gently ran his hands across her hair, looking at her. A bit of color had returned to her skin, after eating and drinking. She was always gray and pale, but she no longer looked deathly ill. She was breathing slowly and evenly, in a peaceful sleep.

Changeling stared out at the snow, holding Raven, and wondering what to do next. His mind wandered freely, remembering the old days, when he lived in the tower, remembering the problems that led to the dissolution of the Titans, and remembering the years since. Raven had tried to keep the team together, in the beginning. She'd even gone so far as to forcibly hold all the exits to the tower closed, in an attempt to keep everyone at least speaking to one another.

It hadn't worked, of course, and the team had splintered, along loyalty to Robin and Cyborg. Starfire followed Robin, unsurprisingly. You could see the misery in her eyes, even then, as she watched her friends bicker and fight, torn between keeping the team together and staying with the boy she'd grown to love. Eventually she'd gone with Robin, and Cyborg and Beastboy had left as well. Raven had remained neutral, trying to get everyone to return to the tower, but communication had grown less and less common, and stopped altogether after a time.

The two pairs of Titans still met occasionally, responding to the same alarm, or just by pure chance. It always led to confrontation, and often to outright combat. Time had done nothing to dull the distrust and anger between the factions, if anything, it had exacerbated it. Starfire and Changeling could still tolerate one another, but rarely got the chance to; as usually Cyborg and Nightwing would push the meeting into a combat.

Changeling gently brushed a filthy strand of hair away from Raven's face. She must have been in the tower this entire time. How she was even still alive, he couldn't tell. She obviously wasn't well, but Changeling found that he had no idea how to fix this. The Titans wouldn't come back; they couldn't. There was simply too much bad blood between them now. Five years of animosity was a lot to overcome.

He spent over an hour mulling over these thoughts, but found himself thinking in circles, and getting nowhere. Movement from Raven scattered his thoughts, however, and he looked at her again. She'd opened her eyes, and was simply laying against his chest now, holding onto him. "You're going to leave again."

Changeling shook his head. "I can't stay here. Come with me, we have space for you. Be around people again, even if we aren't still Titans."

He felt Raven's hands clutch his costume tightly. "Don't go. Stay here with me. If you stay, Cyborg will come back."

It was strange to see Raven, the girl who had always been so independent, so standoffish and cold, being this desperate for companionship. She would never have clung to him like this when they were kids. "It wouldn't work like that. Look at this place, it's destroyed. We couldn't fix it now if we tried."

"If... if you leave... I... I might go away again." Raven's voice was quiet, she sounded scared.

"Go away? What do you mean?"

Raven pulled her knees to her chest, as if she was terrified of the possibility. "I... the way I was... when you got here. The... the Titans in here, talking. They... It was me. They weren't here, I was making them. I wasn't here though, it.. it was like I was watching it happen. I don't want to go away again."

Changeling cringed, hating to see her like this. He hugged her gently, and held her to him. "Don't worry, I'll stay here for a while, you don't have to go away. I'm still your friend, Raven. I won't leave you."

"Fr... Friend. Yes... Friends." Raven closed her eyes again, laying against his chest.

He stared out the window again, as she slept again in his arms. He'd stay at least tonight. Rats wouldn't bite at them, not when there was nonliving food a few feet away, and he couldn't see leaving Raven alone in her condition. He wasn't sure how she'd handle more people coming back all the sudden, and he didn't want to her get hopes up that the Titans would be a team again. He couldn't tell the others about her, not yet. He had to do this slowly, and he had to do it right.

Changeling adjusted his position on the couch a bit, to be more comfortable, and closed his eyes, listening to Raven's quiet, even breath. He would stay here for at least one night, and see if he could help her. No matter if the Titans still existed, Raven was still his friend, and he wouldn't abandon her now. He relaxed himself, and allowed sleep to take him for a time.

* * *

A/N: Well, there you have it. Not sure if it's a coherent story or even an enjoyable read, but it was interesting to write. Please review if you have comments, or even if you just loved/hated the style. I'll get back to writing "Memories Written in Stone" soon, promise. Thanks for reading. 


	2. Starfire

Review Responses:

Kayasuri-N: I'm glad that you liked the change in style. I have continued, so you may stop looking for ways to punish me.

ntmnky: This is high praise. Thank you. I hope that this chapter is equally moving.

SxStrngSamurai13: Thank you. Here is the next chapter.

dr.evil99: We've spoken about the fic already, of course, but I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoy this next installment as well.

Garby: Thank you. Of course, I'm sure the three month delay for chapter two was annoying.

Monchhichi: I hope that this chapter holds your attention as the previous did. I'm glad that you found the plot interesting, and I hope that I will be able to maintain that interest.

outthere101: Thanks!

Supreme Mystic Dragon: Hello! Yes, it is darker, and it's strange to write, as I am always more adept at sugary WAFF, as you put it. I'm glad that the description of the world felt real to you. I hope that you continue to enjoy the fic.

ShaintTaru: Thank you.

Coeus: I tired to make the Titans act their new ages, mature and reasoning as adults, rather than teenagers. The description of the impoverished areas of Jump City was also important, to set a mood. I'm glad that you liked it.

Musa Rox: Hopefully this chapter isn't quite as sad. I hope that you enjoy it.

amaranthineraven: Your first review was not bad. I'm glad that you enjoyed reading, and I hope that this continuance lives up to your expectations.

ravenslair: Raven's condition is a focus of a lot of the fic, and she's definitely in distress. Although this is no longer a oneshot, I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Anime Chick009: Here you go then, I've converted it to a story!

BLIvorySS: I am attempting to fill out a full story with this setting, and I think that it went well enough. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

* * *

A/N: I have decided to continue this story. I hope that this and the following chapters live up to the standard set by the first. Enjoy.

* * *

Starfire rubbed her sore limbs as she walked into the bedroom of her apartment. It had been a long night. They had just finished fighting with Mammoth, Gizmo, and Red X when they heard of Cinderblock's escape. She sighed heavily as she began to unhook her complex Tamaranean armor. The armor was constrictive, and did not breathe well, but since the Titans had broken apart, she needed the extra protection. Starfire frowned. She didn't want to think about that right now.

The room smelled of human and alien exertion. Nightwing worked over a computer printout at the nearby desk, looking for the security flaw that had allowed the jailbreak to occur. He hadn't even finished undressing from the night's patrol before sitting down to his work, let alone actually showering or dressing for sleep. Starfire knelt, collecting the cloth parts of her costume, as well as Nightwing's Kevlar top. She considered asking him to remove his pants as well, so that she could wash them before he invariably wore them all day, but she knew that he didn't want to be bothered.

Tossing the spent clothing into a nearby laundry bin, Starfire walked over to the bed and sat down, sighing again. Nightwing seemed not to notice. Starfire let herself fall backwards onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Speaking with Changeling had brought the old memories back into her mind. She missed the friendship and joy that came with being a Titan. It wasn't something that she thought about often. Those times were gone, and they would never return. Things had been said; some of them were even true and actually intended. There was no way for everyone to be as close again as they once had.

The darkness outside seemed to deepen, despite the approaching sunrise. Starfire frowned again. There had not been a purely sunny day in Jump City for months. The snow still fell outside, giving the city a quiet, calm feeling. Starfire could remember, once, enjoying the snow for its rarity. Outside of Jump City, Snowfall was not a common occurrence in California. She did not make any outward comment about it, however, because she knew that it would simply send Nightwing into another of his moods.

Her fond remembrances of the Titans shattered by the thoughts of snow, Starfire stood again and walked towards the bathroom attached to the room. wanting to clean herself before sleeping. The shower was hot and refreshing, as usual, washing away the sweat and grime from the night of combat, as well as warming her body again and making her feel a bit happier. She quietly hummed a Tamaranean folk song as she bathed, knowing that singing it properly would not only annoy Nightwing, but half of the apartment complex. Stepping out of the water and turning the knob to stop it, she quickly dried herself and stepped out into the bedroom again, not at all surprised that Nightwing was still focusing on the blueprints of the prison.

Starfire kept the towel wrapped around herself, and lay down on the bed again, putting her hands behind her head and staring up at the ceiling again. It had been... five years. Yes, five years since the Titans had separated. Beast Boy had changed so much. Starfire half-smiled. He was Changeling now, trying to act more adult. He was more adult. His body was still thin and wiry, but he'd gotten more muscle over the time, and even his animal forms seemed larger and more potent. His hair was still simple, short-cut and plain, but he seemed less artificially goofy than he had been as a Titan. Perhaps the harder life of a partnership with Cyborg had changed his personality.

Cyborg. The last time she'd spoken to him was during the trial over Jinx. There had been confusion. The only eyewitness was Mammoth, as Beastboy and Gizmo had been fighting and hadn't seen what had happened. Starfire frowned. Mammoth was untrustworthy, but the state had put a great deal of faith in his testimony. The visual records from Cyborg's false eye had been played in court. Starfire could remember it clearly. Gizmo had winced. Mammoth had refused to even watch, covering his eyes with his hand. Cyborg couldn't help but watch, as his circuits obediently played the data back. Starfire and Beast Boy had been sitting next to one another, and she had held his hand as they watched, both of them needing someone to be there. Nightwing... He'd made up his mind before the trial even started. Starfire could see the verdict in his eyes. Watching the video, watching Jinx die... it had simply confirmed what he'd already decided.

Starfire shuddered. These thoughts were not pleasant. She turned her attention to Raven. It had been quite some time since she had visited her old friend. Perhaps two years. Raven had been staying in Azarath for a few months, and had returned only a short time before Starfire had spoken with her. She seemed optimistic, as if she expected the Titans to reform as a group in only a matter of days, with no impetus behind it other than renewing old friendships. It was a side of Raven that Starfire knew few people saw. The optimistic outlook was one that only friends as close as Starfire were allowed to see. Still, Nightwing always resented any visits to the tower, and had yelled at Starfire when she returned. She had tolerated his anger for a time, before simply lifting him by his neck and informing him that he should stop shouting. A few weeks of coldness followed, but things had slowly returned to normal. Starfire had avoided the tower since, not wanting another confrontation.

Thinking of the fighting made her look towards Nightwing again. Starfire sat up, and took her brush from the nightstand next to the bed, brushing her hair before it dried too thoroughly. She watched Nightwing pore over the prison blueprints, and smiled slightly. It was something that she had admired about him when she had first met him; this overriding obsession with public safety and crime fighting. He seemed to care about defeating criminals and stopping villainous plots more than his own health. Over time, it had begun to grate on her nerves, and she was beginning to wonder if she was anything more to him than simply a crime fighting partner that he occasionally entered into romantic situations with.

Finished with her hair, Starfire returned the hairbrush to the nightstand, and thought back to something that had been bothering her. It was five years since the Titans had split, so that meant... Starfire did some mathematic meandering in her mind, as converting time measurements between planets was difficult. She nodded as she realized that she had been correct. She pulled the towel off, and dressed in her loose sleeping clothes, which were still on the floor. She sat down on the bed once more, and looked back towards Nightwing. "Do you remember what today is?"

Nightwing paused a moment, and Starfire could tell that he was going over their special days, anniversary and the like. After a moment, he shook his head, while still looking at the design documents. "It's November 17th."

Starfire frowned, but realized that she shouldn't have expected him to remember it. "It is Blorthog."

Nodding, after pausing another second to do the math, Nightwing spoke with feigned interest. "You're right."

"It is rather sad now. It is supposed to be a joyous holiday, but I have no one to give a tenabula to." Starfire was beginning to get irritated with Nightwing's refusal to pay attention to what she was saying.

Nightwing shrugged, still not turning around to face her. "That's not true. You've got me."

"Nightwing, we are not friends, we are... loves. Blorthog is for friendships."

"Barbara then. You two get along." Still not turning around.

Starfire frowned, and her anger crept into her voice. "We get along, but we are not friends." Her frown became a bit of a triumphant smile. "I was the winner of an unspoken competition, I think, and she resents me for it."

"Mm." Nightwing wasn't even using words anymore.

Starfire stood, and put her hand on Nightwing's shoulder, careful not to let her anger force her to grip him too strongly, as he was fragile, like all humans. "Do not ignore me. Speak to me, Nightwing. The prison designs will be there tomorrow."

Nightwing reached up and pushed her hand away, irritation clear in his action. "The Hive will be out again tomorrow too, if I don't find the flaw. Look, I'm sorry Blorthog isn't going well this year, but you'll just have to deal with it. I'm busy."

Starfire felt the heat of her starbolt energy in her eyes, glowing brightly. "You are most difficult. I seek nothing but the attention that should be paid to your gel'fek."

Nightwing slammed his hands down on the desk, shocking Starfire out of her anger. He stood quickly, turning towards her angrily. "Starfire, I'm busy! I know Blorthog will be lonely with no friends, but it's not the end of the world! If I don't find this problem and fix it... _People. Could. Die_. I think your loneliness is less important than innocent lives!"

Nightwing grabbed the papers roughly, storming out of the room, and slamming the door behind him. Starfire stared blankly at the door for a moment, not having expected such an outburst. As the shock faded, however, she frowned, the anger and hurt taking over. She removed her sleeping clothes once more, and donned a new set of cloth armor, before refitting her metallic armor again. She could see herself in the mirror, eyes glowing brightly, with her tense musculature under the flexible metal armor. Tamaranean armor was designed differently than armor on Earth. It closed itself around her body, forming a layer of metal that was flexible when she wanted to move, but would stop any outside assault short of a tank shell.

Starfire frowned at her reflection, and walked over to the door, turning the doorknob too sharply in her anger, and breaking the mechanics inside. Tossing the hunk of metal aside, she glared at Nightwing as she walked past him, though he didn't look up at her. She opened the large floor to ceiling window that she and Nightwing used as an access point, to avoid having to walk through the hallways in costume. She hesitated a moment, the snowy wind blowing into the apartment around her.

Nightwing spoke, his voice calmer than before, but still not looking up from his work. "Where are you going?"

"I do not know. I require... the space. You are most difficult to be around." Starfire tried to force her voice to sound angry, but the hurt showed through more than anything. She sometimes wished that she was as well-practiced as humans at lying about emotions.

"Well, don't be too long. You need to get some sleep. Tonight we are going to go look at the foundations for the prison. I think it may have been part of the escape plan." Nightwing gave her the courtesy of a quick glance, but that was all.

Sighing, Starfire walked out of the window, taking flight with some difficulty, and closing the window behind her.

* * *

Starfire was uncertain of the exact time, but knew that it was only just before dawn. Perhaps six o'clock in the morning. The air was still cold, and the snow fell heavily around her, as she sat on the edge of the roof. She hadn't gone far from the apartment, only two floors up, knowing that she honestly had no where else to go. Though she was a capable fighter, she wasn't the type to seek combat to push away personal issues. She had no other location to visit. Even if she sought out Changeling and Cyborg, it was possible that it would not be as amicable as the meeting earlier that night.

The snow had fallen over her, and melted, and she was wet with it. It was cold, miserable, dark, and she was alone. A typical Blorthog, for the past few years. There had only been two since the Titans had sundered, as Tamaran was farther from it's sun, and the years were longer.

The first time, she had brought a tenabula to Raven, who had still lived in the Tower, and to Beast Boy and Cyborg, who had been staying in an apartment downtown. It had been fairly cheerless, except that Raven had seemed overly happy to see her. The following time, it had been worse. She had visited Raven, but Cyborg and Beast Boy had moved, and had not given any information as to where they had gone. Raven had been depressed, and considering returning to Azarath. She had, for a time. Starfire sighed. This year, Blorthog would be entirely without mirth. She spent all of her time training, sleeping, and fighting. Nightwing's obsessions left time for little else. Except on the occasional trip to that disgusting pit of a city that was Gotham, Starfire rarely spoke with anyone but Nightwing. Speaking to Batman or Oracle was seldom any more rewarding. The new Robin had too much of a tendency to stare, and he had an air of doom around him, as if he were fated for nothing good. She did not like Jason.

Standing, Starfire concentrated on finding some memory of joy, to allow herself to fly. With Blorthog so present in her mind, she recalled the Blorthog spent in the tower, shortly after her return from her adventure with Warp. Everything had gone well, the Titans following her instructions for the Dance of Friendship, as well as trying to stomach the Bread of Resisting Rekmas. It was not pleasant to a human palate.

Starfire, with little else to do, and not wanting to return to her apartment at the moment, decided to visit the place of her old, happy memories. Titans' Tower was not close, but she could focus well enough to make it there. The city was busy, with morning commuter traffic,as thousands of mundane humans were going to work. Starfire flew high above the streets, not wanting to be spotted.

Public opinion was mixed on the former Titans. After the team had dissolved, a crime wave had occurred, as neither team seemed strong enough to combat the threats to the city alone. As they had gotten stronger, the crime had normalized, but people had not forgotten. The issue with Jinx had only reignited all the old questions, and Cyborg's current fugitive status had not helped to mend the situation.

The lights of the city passed behind her, as she set out over the water, avoiding depressing thoughts. Tamaranean flight required a constant state of at least feigned happiness, and Starfire did not relish the idea of falling a hundred feet into the freezing salt water. Instead, she tried to picture Raven's life. Certainly, she had seen that the Titans would never reform, and had gone to live in Azarath. Starfire had visited there. There was no weather in Azarath, the sun shone all day, and night was always clear and starry. Water was created by the mystics there, and well-tended crops provided the food. Perhaps Raven would be treated as a returning conqueror, as she had defeated Trigon so long ago. Starfire smiled. Yes, even if the rest of the Titans had fallen on difficult times, certainly Raven was happy, in her extra dimensional paradise.

Starfire landed, feeling inwardly relieved at being able to cease the forced joy, and looked up at the Tower, rising menacingly above her. It was dark, with various shattered windows, as well as large snowdrifts around and on top of the structure. Starfire frowned. This was too similar to the future she had seen on the first Blorthog of the Titans. She did not like to be reminded of it.

Still, she had come all this way to look at the Tower, and she may as well go inside. The large front doors were half covered in a snowdrift, and inaccessible. Starfire closed her eyes, extending her starbolt power around her body, warming the surrounding area quickly. When she opened her eyes, the snow had been reduced to a rivulet of mildly warm water, running down the cracks and gullies of the rocky coast into the sea. Starfire lightly touched the old keypad for opening the doors, but it had long since stopped functioning.

Starfire reached out, and casually pushed the five hundred pound door open. The old locks and opening mechanisms groaned against the movement, but gave way quickly enough. Starfire stepped inside, and stopped short, staring at the foyer ahead of her.

Dozens of vaguely humanoid masses of fire stood silently in the foyer, lined against each wall. Starfire recognized them immediately. They were the same monsters that Slade had used against the Titans when Trigon was trying to force Raven into becoming his portal. Still, these monsters were not moving. They simply stood, watching her closely, but not attacking. Starfire pressed the door with the back of her hand, closing it slowly.

She walked forward, watching the nearest flame, but it didn't respond, simply following her motions with it's... eyes. What were these things here for? Had Raven posted guards at the Tower? Why? No one lived here anymore.

Starfire pressed the switch to call the elevator before she really thought about how foolish it was. A creaking, groaning sound of failed engines was all the reward that she got. Sighing at the state of the place, Starfire forced the elevator door open, and then looked downwards. The elevator itself seemed to be stuck in the basement. Starfire focused once more, and floated upwards through the elevator shaft. Coming to the top floor, where the Titans had lived, she forced open the door again, and landed in the hallway. Deciding to visit her old room first, Starfire turned away from the doorway to operations, and walked down the hallway.

The tower was still familiar to her, in a way. Though it was deathly cold now, with power having long since stopped running, and the walls were covered in water damage and rust, she could still feel some of the warmth from her memories of the place. She had Robin had kissed there, in the hallway. Over there, she had seen Raven arguing with Beast Boy, over the value of video games as a meditation tool. She couldn't help but smile.

Reaching her old room, Starfire looked at her name emblazoned across the door. She pressed the button to open it, and was greeted by the grinding mechanism from inside the door. Still, it opened, slowly, and then broke completely. Her room was dark, but Starfire couldn't help but think that she didn't want to see it too clearly anyway. The window was open, for some reason, and everything was covered in either snow, ice, or a thin layer of dew.

Holding up her hand, and summoning a starbolt to it, Starfire bathed the room in a green light. Some small earth mammal ran from the sudden illumination, scurrying under her old bed. The room was in a terrible state, but nothing seemed to have been stolen. The bed was sunken and seemed to have nearly rotted out, and her old curtains were ripped and torn. The room was grimy, having been exposed to nature from the window for so long, and Starfire almost felt loathe to touch anything. It hardly inspired the nostalgic feeling that she'd hoped for.

Starfire crossed the room, careful not to step on the mammalian droppings on the floor. She looked at her old desktop, with the tubes of various beauty lotions and soaps, gnawed through by animals long ago. She lifted the small photo frame there, looking at the smiling team, sitting in the sunny park. Cyborg was hiding his hand in the photo, and she realized that it must be what was taking the photo. She smiled, looking at the happy teenagers that they had been. She carefully unlatched the back of the frame, and removed the photo, folding it in half and putting it into a pocket in her costume. Nightwing may resent such a momento, but he would simply have to get past it.

Her room was depressing her, and so she extinguished her starbolt, and left it, leaving the door open. It was no longer truly her room, and she did not mind if animals came and left as they pleased. Starfire hesitated a moment in the hallway, not certain that she wished to see more of her old home in this condition. She slowly walked down the hallway, towards Operations, despite the strange feeling in her stomach telling her that it could not end well.

Starfire was so lost in her thoughts that she nearly missed the gaping darkness that opened up on her left. However, the change in the monotony of the steel wall did catch her eye, and she turned, looking at the half-open door. -VEN was all that was visible of the printing, but Starfire remembered the placement of the rooms well enough that she didn't need to read it. There was a strange smell in the air that Starfire didn't quite recognize. She lit her hand again, peering into the empath's old room.

Raven's room was more of a mess than hers had been, and in a different way. There were books all over the floor, scattered seemingly randomly. All of them had water damage, many of them unreadable, even if Starfire could decipher the languages. Starfire also noticed bones in a corner, some still with meat on them. Some animal, or more likely, some human vagrant, must be staying in her old friend's room. Starfire did not like the idea, but couldn't really think of a reason that she would be right in chasing the person out. Sighing, she turned and left the room, but pulled the door shut behind her. With a quick shot from her eyes, she welded the door shut, hoping that whoever was violating her friend's memory by living in her room would not have the resources to get through it.

Starfire walked quickly, hoping that whoever had been staying in the tower would be in the Operations Room. She wasn't angry, not really, but this visit to the tower had not been as happy as she had hoped. Plus, the strange fire monsters in the entry hall were still bothering her. The door to operations, when she reached it, was less a door and more a few scattered pieces of torn and destroyed metal lying on the floor. Starfire lit her hands with starbolts, and walked cautiously into the room.

This room, as all of the others, was in disarray and a terrible state of decay. It was dark, but she could make out the old kitchen area, with pots and pans still sitting in the sink, and a few teacups scattered around the counter. A few shattered dishes were on the floor nearby as well. The large window and television screen had cracked somewhat, and the couch was also rotting, as--

There was someone on the couch. The green light illuminated the back of someone's head, as they apparently slept on their old sofa. Whoever was there was leaning against something as they slept, their head tilted slightly to the side. Starfire crept slowly across the floor, towards the person, not wanting to wake them before she had a good position to strike, in case it was some sort of villain.

As she rounded the side of the couch, and the people on it came more into view, she stopped sneaking and froze completely. It... It was Changeling and... Raven. Starfire's voice carried all the horror that the sight of her old friend brought to her heart. "X'hal..."

No... Raven was... she was happy. She was supposed to be happy. She was in Azarath, she was living as a queen, as a priestess, even as a simple farmer. She had sunny days and friends, perhaps a husband. Her life was easy, bright, and wonderful. She could not... she wasn't...

This couldn't be her. It couldn't.

This girl was so thin, her dirty and tattered robe hung from her emaciated body as if clinging to the past. Her gaunt face was streaked with grime and tears, and even her sleep seemed troubled, as she winced slightly from some dream. Starfire could smell food, and noticed the Styrofoam boxes of what smelled like Chinese food on the small table in front of the two. Changeling must have brought her food. How could he have let her live like this for so long?

Starfire had no idea what to do. She felt that she couldn't wake them; she didn't know what to say. She couldn't just leave, not when her friend was in such obvious pain and suffering. She felt tears roll down her own cheeks. She couldn't take this. Raven was supposed to be happy. Of all of them, she was the last one that Starfire had maintained hope for.

As if sensing Starfire's anguish, Raven frowned in her sleep, and then slowly opened her eyes. Starfire couldn't move, frozen with indecision, as Raven looked first at the man she was laying against, and then over towards Starfire. Raven's eyes were blank, as if she didn't recognize her at first. Then, suddenly, a light seemed to come into them.

"Star... fire? You... you came back." A sad smile crept across Raven's face, and Starfire could do little but step towards the couch, and sit next to her. The movement seemed to wake Changeling as well, and he looked over as Raven clung to Starfire tightly. Starfire held her old friend close, crying with her, as the emotions of the night finally poured over her.

She looked up at Changeling, through her tears, and he smiled awkwardly. "Welcome back."

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A/N: There you have it. Please review with honest criticisms or praise, as you see fit. Hopefully the next chapter will have less of a delay. Thank you for reading. 


	3. Nightwing

Review Responses: 

CalliopeMused: Small details are important. I like having the heroes dealing with mundane things like laundry. It allows for more realism. Anyway, as always I'm glad to hear your opinion. Hope you like this chapter.

BLIvorySS: Surprise again; here's another chapter earlier than most people would think. I don't have a great history of quick updates. Nightwing and Starfire are always 'on the rocks' in the comics. She's just too bright and he's just too angsty. Still, there's hope for them. As for revealing the past, that's part of the fic. The setting is nice, but seeing how it got so bad is interesting as well. I do hope sincerely that you enjoy this next chapter.

Bhill62: Starfire is a bit too lost-puppy-ish in the show. She's just so doting on Robin that it's a bit annoying. Nightwing has strengths and weaknesses, and interpersonal relations is a major weakness. Hope you continue to enjoy the story.

Coeus: Keeping everyone in their changed character is important to me. They act differently at this age, but they are still themselves. I'm working on showing the past, and I'm glad people like how it's going. Here's that next installment you wanted.

Anime Chick009: You're welcome! This chapter is fairly soon, for me anyway.

hoshi-ko88: I'm glad you felt something when you read the fic. Here's the update.

Dr. Evil 99: This fic is one of the few that I am proud of in a real way. The characters are close to their comic versions, while hopefully retaining some of what made them who they were in the show as well. Raven is a little crazy from isolation, but she's still lucid. I am always glad to see a review from you, as you well know. Thanks.

rockpaperscissor: It's a sad setting. Nothing seems to have gone right for the Titans since they split. Raven is having issues, since she relied so heavily on her friends for stability, and they all left. "Update Soon" in your case, is only a matter of a day or two, so enjoy.

* * *

A/N: This story continues to surprise me. Though I have a fair idea of where I'm going with it, the writing moves by itself. Most importantly, by some fluke, it continues to be _good_. So hey, enough of my babbling up here. Enjoy chapter three.

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Nightwing winced reflexively as he opened his eyes. The light outside was pale, filtered through the clouds above as well as the falling snow, but it still seemed overly bright. His mind was muddy, sluggish with lack of sleep. Shaking his head sharply, to chase away the cobwebs in his mind, he looked down at the papers that he'd been sleeping on. Blueprints. Prison blueprints.

Nightwing frowned. He'd fallen asleep in the middle of searching for the security flaw. Another mistake. He wasn't supposed to make mistakes. He pushed his chair back from the desk he'd been working on, and stood up, forcing himself to look out the window. The snow fell endlessly outside, keeping the city nothing but white with gray-black walls standing in the fog. He frowned. The weather was a result of another stupid mistake.

Turning from the floor to ceiling window, he walked quickly across the living room, and reached out to open the door to the bedroom. The doorknob was missing.

Right, he'd had an argument with Starfire.

He sighed with exasperation. It was hard to predict Starfire completely, but he knew that either she'd be in the bed, still angry with him, or she would have stayed in a hotel, and was probably crying. Either way, it would be difficult to deal with her for the next few days. As much as he loved the woman, and despite the fact that he couldn't imagine life without her, her tendency to ignore all logic in favor of her seemingly random mood swings vexed him to no end.

Pushing the door open slowly, Nightwing crept into the bedroom, careful not to make any noise at all. He peered around the door frame, and saw the empty bed, apparently unused. He sighed in relief. At least she wasn't angry and simply waiting for a chance to work out their problems with their fists. Neither of them ever won that sort of fight. Moving more quickly, Nightwing pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked to the ostensibly simple desk in the corner. Pressing a small switch on the side opened the desk's surface, revealing the computer workstation underneath.

The small monitor built into the console lit up, flashing a few screens of standard startup information before being covered with a stylized green face. Oracle's symbol, and a few moments later, Oracle's real face. She looked mildly irritated, but that didn't mean that anything had actually happened. She was usually irritated with him. Her voice sounded like Raven's on a bad day. "What?"

Nightwing grinned, not to be swayed by his longtime partner's bad mood. "Good morning to you too, Babs. Find anything on the prison breakout since this morning?"

She furrowed her brow for a moment, as if confused, and then shook her head. "No, I've been distracted. Batman has been following a lead on Joker's latest slaughter since last night, and now I've got Dinah working on it. I'm afraid your breakout is going to have to wait."

"Does he need my help?"

"Would he ever ask, even if he did? Stay in Jump City, Dick. I'll call you if anything comes up. Oracle out."

The screen went black for a moment, before displaying the standard operating system interface. Nightwing frowned. Fine, stick with Gotham, let Jump City rot. He wondered if Oracle would ever really forgive him for leaving Gotham. It had been almost a decade since he'd done so, but she still seemed mad. It's not as if there was anything else she would be angry about.

Nightwing tapped the screen a few times, maneuvering through the system to activate Starfire's tracker. If she'd taken the hotel route, he might as well get there before the press drove her crazy. Being famous superheroes meant that even checking into a hotel was difficult. The tracking icon blinked several times before finally centering the onscreen map on a small island out in the bay. A small "S" flashed roughly in the center of it. The coordinates fit.

She was in the Operations room of Titans' Tower.

Nightwing impulsively slammed his hand against the desk. The console made a buzzing noise, as the keys he'd pressed were unavailable in tracking mode. Starfire knew he didn't want her going to the tower. The place was falling apart. It was a deathtrap to anyone at this point. Even besides that, it was the place of another mistake. One of the biggest one's he'd ever made.

He stood, pressing the switch to hide the console again, and undressed, kicking his pants aside as he entered the shower. A few minutes later, he was out again, feeling refreshed and much more alert. Knowing that he couldn't go to the prison investigating the foundation until nightfall, he dressed in normal clothing. Nightwing turned away from the dresser and walked back to the console, revealing it again. Tapping a few more onscreen buttons brought up the security cameras he'd hidden around the prison. It seemed as if everything was going smoothly. The guards were a little more attentive today than normally, given the recent breakout, and everyone still seemed to be in their cells.

Starfire's location still bothered him, however, so he tapped a few more buttons, leaving the prison's interface. The list of internal cameras for the tower came up, most of the names in red, showing broken or non-functioning equipment. The only active cameras were labeled as Exterior002 and Lobby005. The exterior view would only be falling snow, and snow that had already fallen. The lobby camera would just show an empty, darkened room with no life or value. Nightwing pressed the switch again, hiding the console.

Leaning back in the chair a bit, he let himself reminisce for a moment. It wasn't something he normally indulged in, given that it often depressed him. He felt more himself when he was in the middle of a fight. When he was swinging down on a de-cel line, there wasn't time to remember the arguments that split his team apart. When he was being hit by Mammoth, the sound of his ribs cracking drowned out the thoughts of his failing relationship with Starfire. Living moment to moment made everything so much easier.

Still, the past did exist, and he couldn't just forget it. The Titans had been almost as important as Batman in his life. However, they'd been fated to fail. It had started with Brother Blood. Cyborg's insistence on having his own team, and his strange and sudden chafing under Robin's command...

No, that was wrong. That was too late a time to start. Cyborg had never been comfortable being a follower. Even the first time they'd met, there had been questions about the chain of command. As time had passed, it had become apparent that Robin's experience fighting crime and passion for the work made him a competent leader, and so he'd become the official leader almost be default. Still, as time progressed, as they all grew up, Cyborg's patience had waned.

A casual observer would say that the final argument between Titans was over a petty problem. However, whatever had been the initial cause wasn't even important. Nightwing, thinking back after five years, couldn't even remember what it had been. The argument had years of other grievances behind it, and it had taken a life of its own. Words were said, tensions were high, and Robin had thrown the first punch.

He still didn't know what had driven him to escalate the shouted confrontation to physical violence. It had to be the same impulse that had caused the obsessive search for Slade, the descent into the underworld in search of Raven, and all the other excesses that had marked his time with the Titans. Too much passion, too much fury, and too much 'living moment to moment'. He'd been angry, frustrated, and exhausted. The tension had been building and gaining momentum for too long, and once he'd swung his fist, the floodgates had opened.

It hadn't taken long for everything to fall apart. Beast Boy and Starfire had tried to keep everyone calm, and Raven had even gone so far as attempting to force everyone to stay in the Tower, but the steel walls were only so powerful, and Cyborg had blasted a hole in the roof, from three floors below it. Beast Boy, making a quick decision to side with his longtime friend, had flown away, carrying Cyborg with him. Robin and Starfire had remained in the tower, for a time, but it wasn't long before the memories of the place became too much, and they had left as well. Raven, so far as Nightwing could recall, had gone to Azerath.

Nightwing stood up again, focusing his mind on dressing in his costume, instead of remembering the mess he'd made of his team. A few minutes later, he was out the window, sliding down a dropline to an inconspicuous maintenance hatch on the shore nearby. He tried to avoid daylight excursions like this, but his mind was too unfocused today to stay indoors. He'd think himself to death.

* * *

The cold air bit deep into his costume and skin as his small speedboat cut through the waves of the bay. Sea spray and the thick morning fog weren't helping to keep him warm, and his costume was soaking wet even before he had to dive into the freezing water to avoid detection by the prison guards. The speedboat, on autopilot, roared away again as soon as he was clear, the loud sound retreating from the prison and letting the guards know that whoever had accidentally gotten too close had decided to leave again.

Breaking into the prison was easier than breaking out. Nightwing ran up the shoreline quickly, between guard patrols, and waited, pressed against the wall. He listened to the footsteps above him on the walkway, get louder and then start to fade as the guard passed. A quick toss of a batarang hooked a line over the wall, and Nightwing climbed quickly, unhooking the grapple and dropping to the ground again before the next patrol came over the corner.

It was too early for the exercise yard to be used, so no one was being paid to watch it. Still, even a wayward glance would spot him out here. He knew the way well enough, and ten seconds saw him inside the main prison structure, his electronic pick having opened the door effortlessly. The maintenance shaft was less than twenty feet from the entrance he'd chosen, and he was out of sight of the general populace in moments. If the security flaw was with the foundation, he'd find the evidence down here.

Time always moved faster than it seemed, when he was investigating. He bent his mind entirely to the task, and all other concerns faded. Two hours passed in a heartbeat, and suddenly, he was left without leads. The foundation was secure. There were no holes dug, no broken supports, and no flaw in the tunnels. Nothing big enough for even Gizmo to crawl through, let alone the huge bulk of someone like Mammoth. The search had led to a dead end.

Suddenly an electronic crackle in his earpiece made him jump. His position, nearly 30 feet underground, caused the signal to be rather poor quality, but he was still in contact. Oracle's voice spoke into his ear. "-ightwing, do yo- -opy?"

"A little busy, Oracle." Nightwing kept his voice low, not that there was anyone likely to hear him from here. Was that waste disposal pipe supposed to be open like that?

"-arfire is h-- -r way. H-w does sh- fly so fas-?"

Nightwing pressed the small receiver to his ear. The metal in the disposal pipe was making the transmission even worse. "Didn't copy, Oracle. What about Star?"

The static in the earpiece faded significantly; Oracle must have pulled another Lexcorp communications satellite out of standard orbit to boost signal gain. "Starfire is headed your way like her life depends on it. Be ready for a--"

Oracle's voice cut out, and Starfire's cut in. Nightwing had set her communicator as a higher priority. "You must come out, Nightwing. I require your assistance."

Oh hell. Barbara would be furious for being cut off in favor of Starfire, but there was nothing to do about it now. "Starfire, I'm busy. I think they may have used this pipe to-"

"I do not care about the prison break. You must accompany me to the Tower." Something was weird about Starfire's voice. She was angry with him, or at least frustrated, but there was a weird desperation in it.

Nightwing sighed. "I'll be coming out on the north end of the island in about three minutes. Go get the boat, we can talk about the fight when we get back home. Nightwing out."

He switched off the communicator, not wanting to hear either Barbara or Starfire rant at him right now. A swatch of orange cloth on the wall of the pipe caught his eye, and he pulled it from the snag of metal that had torn it. Half of a prison number was stitched into it, and it was the latter half of Gizmo's. That confirmed it. They'd used this old disposal pipe to leave the prison. How had they gotten here from their cells?

Suddenly, a powerful explosion collapsed the pipe, not twenty feet ahead of Nightwing. The sudden light shining in from above blinded him momentarily. He pulled his hand away from shielding his eyes, but could only see the silhouette of Starfire against the bright light shining in from the ruined tunnel. The blazing light in her eyes and hands was even stronger than the daylight, however. She looked furious and nearly demonic.

"Starfire, what the hell are you doing?" They would be swarmed with prison guards in minutes, if they even had that long. Thankfully, they were outside the prison walls and on the opposite side of the island from the only opening in them. Nightwing was almost surprised to feel the concussive discs between his fingers. He'd drawn them almost reflexively.

Starfire's voice was full of anger, but still carried that desperate tone as well. "I do not have time to waste in fighting you, Nightwing. You are required at the Tower, and I will not hear excuses!"

The impulse, the same one that had caused the breakup of the Titans, caused Nightwing to throw the discs at her. At the time, however, he felt as if he was making the correct choice. Knock her out, disable her, and run. Keep the guards from seeing them.

Starfire's eyes glowed brightly, and a laser-fine beam of energy sliced the explosives out of the air. Nightwing's fingers pressed the recall button for his speedboat, as he dodged downwards, ducking under Starfire's sudden flying lunge. His escrima batons were out in half of a second, and he let one loose without hesitation, narrowly missing Starfire as she deftly dodged the attack.

Nightwing jumped quickly to his left, dodging another shot from her eyes, and then leapt towards her, striking down heavily with his remaining baton. Her fury and raging emotions seemed to affect her speed as well as strength, however, and Nightwing's eyes widened slightly as she simply reached out and caught the weapon. The woman's hand didn't move in the slightest, though all of his strength was behind the attack.

He suddenly found himself hanging from a metal stick that was being held by the most powerful woman he knew.

Then Nightwing made another stupid mistake: he blinked.

The last thing he saw before darkness took him was the back of Starfire's armored gauntlet sailing towards his face. He collapsed to the floor and knew nothing else.

* * *

The rush of air was in his ears when he came to. He was flying, and could feel Starfire's strong arm holding him. She had apparently felt the change in his body as he awoke, and he felt her grip tighten, both to keep hold of him, and to warn him not to try to escape. When he opened his eyes, he found that the black of unconsciousness had only been replaced with a solid gray. They were high enough in the air to lose the ground in the fog. the only variances in color were the small, swirling white spots of snowflakes as they drifted lazily through the air.

Nightwing's head was spinning, the concussion making him feel groggy and pained. Still, he noticed that Starfire was flying slowly, as if she was having difficulty keeping them aloft. Apparently the fighting had put her into another depression. He knew that she had trouble flying when she couldn't summon up joy. Having no desire to fall hundreds of feet to the ground, Nightwing decided to try to calm her. "I'm sorry."

"For what are you sorry? Is it the fighting this morning, or the refusal of a simple request?" Starfire's voice was angry, but Nightwing tried to keep calm.

Oracle's voice crackled through his transmitter, despite his having switched it off. "For ever moving in with a psychotic alien princess in the first pl-"

The voice was too quiet to hear as Starfire's fingers pulled the receiver from his ear and dropped it into the swirling fog below them. Nightwing sighed. "She's not going to be happy about that, Star."

"I do not care. Do you remember what you said to Cyborg, five years ago? That no matter who the leader was, we were Titans first? That all other concerns must be secondary?" Starfire's voice wavered, as did her flight.

Starfire was a strong woman, emotionally as well as physically. Nightwing was not so blind that he did not notice her strange manner. "Yes. What brought that up? What's wrong, Starfire?"

The woman stopped moving forward for a moment, and lowered herself in a controlled fall, feet first. The fog below them seemed to grow darker at first, until it became clear that they were over the bay, with the dark waters below them. Nightwing's boat was below them, still tracking him, as he'd set it to back in the prison. Starfire landed lightly on the boat, and let go of Nightwing. She seemed to almost collapse then, sitting heavily on one of the two seats, and cupping her face in her hands. "Everything. Everything is wrong, Nightwing, and nothing we have done has changed any of it."

He hesitated a moment. She had been angry earlier, and when she was wound so tightly, she tended to move between emotions without any real provocation. He had to tread lightly. "Starfire, talk to me. I'll pay attention this time."

Starfire pulled her hands away from her face. She seemed close to tears, but her face remained dry so far. "It is the future, Nightwing. Warp was correct. There is no changing it."

"Warp? Oh... Blorthog. Look, I know things aren't going as well as they could, and what happened with the Titans might seem like Rekmas, but you know what caused it. Besides, it's not the same. Cyborg is not stuck in the Tower, Changeling is at least close to competent as a crime fighter, and you are still here. We might not have changed everything, but it's still better than what you saw."

"Raven." Starfire's voice struck him deeply. It seemed as if all the pain she'd ever felt was placed into that one word.

Nightwing didn't speak for a moment, and Starfire seemed as if she was incapable of it, staring into the water next to the boat. After a few seconds, the silence became unbearable, and he felt forced to say something. "She... She's in Azerath. She said she was going there. She's got to have friends there; she isn't like the one you knew in the future."

"You... you are wrong. She is..." Starfire closed her eyes, and Nightwing knew her well enough to know that she was simply trying to stop herself from crying. He knelt beside her, putting his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her close.

She didn't cry, but she clung to him regardless. Her voice was weak, and it sounded as if she had to choke out each word. "She is... not as bad as I saw, and worse. I do not... I can not talk about it. You must see her."

Nightwing gently moved Starfire, pulling her away so that he could look her in the eyes. "Starfire, we can't go see her. She's not even on Earth."

"Dick, she lives in the Tower."

* * *

The small motorboat was running quietly now, as Nightwing took care to approach the island slowly. Nightwing helped Starfire out of the boat, and then stepped out himself, turning off the engine, and pulling the boat a few feet inland, to keep it from washing back out to sea. He turned slowly, careful of his footing on the frozen rocks, and looked upwards, at the Tower. Even though the daylight was pale and bright, the face of the Tower seemed to loom darkly over them. He could see his old window, though it seemed to be missing most of the glass. He frowned. No one should be living here.

Movement from Starfire refocused him, and he followed her to the large doorway, which was standing ajar. The orange-tinted light inside made him think that the room might be on fire. When he actually stepped inside to look, he found that the truth was worse.

"What are those doing here?" Before he'd even thought to do it, he felt his escrima batons in his hands again.

Starfire walked confidently forward, though her brightly glowing eyes showed that she was ready for combat if it was required. Her voice was guarded, but Nightwing could hear her anger. "They are guards. Raven was attacked when the crime was bad. She is powerful, and would win if she knew they were coming. She must sleep, however, and so she summoned guards."

"Raven always hated them, though. Too close to her father." Nightwing couldn't help but be nervous among these things.

Starfire turned to look at him, her face troubled. "I did not say that she wanted to summon them."

Nightwing looked up the elevator shaft, dismayed at the broken mechanics. "Going to fly?"

The woman shook her head, sighing. "I am unable. I can not summon the joy of flight. Having you here, in the Tower, makes it too difficu-mmphh-"

Nightwing held Starfire close as they kissed. It was a planned move, of course, to help her perhaps feel enough joy to fly, but it was also a true expression. He'd been too focused lately, too fixated on crime fighting. He could see, in Starfire's eyes, the same expression that he'd seen in all the women in Bruce's life. The knowledge that they were always second place. He knew what that sort of life lead to, and he wasn't planning to follow in Bruce's footsteps.

When their lips parted, Starfire pulled away slightly, but kept her arms around him. Her eyes were shining with happiness. "That was... you have not kissed like that since we were children."

"Since we were Titans." Nightwing grinned. "Titans first, everything else second."

The flight to the top of the elevator shaft only took a few seconds. Nightwing heard voices up ahead, and recognized Changeling and Raven.

"Come on, eat. You know you want to."

"I can't. I'm full, Beast Boy. When is Starfire coming back?"

"She'll be back any second. Look, if you don't eat, I'll leave too."

"You- You're leaving?"

"Ow, don't hurt my hand like that! Jeez, I was just kidding! Don't squeeze so hard."

Nightwing couldn't help but smile. It sounded like flirting, but it was more than likely nothing but Changeling doing what he could to keep things light. He always did like to joke around. The short corridor from the elevator to the Operations Room ended, and Nightwing stepped through the door, while Starfire stopped in the doorway, blocking any retreat.

Nightwing's smile disappeared, as he saw the other three people in the room. Changeling didn't bother him. Raven was... she looked horrible. She was his friend. Back when he'd had friends, she was one of the best. They had all left her, and she was paying for it. Changeling set the fork with the stir fry on it back in the Styrofoam dish, as Raven looked over at the newcomer to the room.

Her eyes were dull for a moment, but not for long. She stood weakly, then ran over to Nightwing, throwing her arms around him and holding on to him tightly. He put a hand on her back, holding her close, as she cried happily on his shoulder. She must have been waiting for the Titans to come back, all this time. She... she was starving, miserable, and apparently half crazy, or she'd never be clinging to him like this. She was a friend, a teammate, and, above all, a Titan. He would do all he could to help her. However, she wasn't the only one there.

Finally, Nightwing let himself look at the third person that had been in the room when he'd arrived. Cyborg, looking the same as he had all those years ago, stood up from the generator he'd been repairing in the wall, and looked back at Nightwing. Neither of them said anything for a few moments, just staring at each other as if they were separated by a chasm a mile wide. Nightwing felt Raven shift in his arms, as she felt the change in emotional climate.

Cyborg looked around the room, at the gathered group of heroes. "Alright y'all, we're back. Now what?"

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the third chapter. Please review, positively or negatively, and I'll see you next chapter. 


	4. Cyborg

Review Responses: 

Monchhichi: This is Cyborg's chapter. You know I can't just leave him out. I'm glad that you enjoy the characterizations. Nightwing and Starfire have a difficult sort of relationship, and I find it interesting as well.

Kayasuri-N: I figured you'd like seeing Nightwing get slapped around by Starfire. Sometimes that guy just needs some sense knocked into him. I hope this chapter is good also.

Karkadinn: Your review is a bit more in depth than the normal ones I receive. I know that super-angst Raven is overused, but given that this future is loosely based on Star's trip to the future in HLIF, Raven is required to be a bit off. Starfire and Nightwing have a lot of issues, and I've read their comics too much to avoid something of those moving into this fic as well. As for Oracle and Jason, they are important in Nightwing's background, and if Star is with him, she'd know them as well. This story does not have a set pairing of any particular type, though Changeling and Raven are closer than they used to be. Anyway, thank you for the review. I hope you find Cyborg's chapter as engaging.

SxStrnSamurai13: Starfire is interesting, striking a nice dichotomy between nice girl and warrior woman. With the city in the state that it is, the imagery really can't help but be dark. Glad that you are still enjoying the fic.

* * *

A/N: This chapter happens at least partially in parallel to the previous. This chapter reads a bit differently than the rest of the fic, as there are more people here now, and dialog starts to take over. Anyway, thanks for all the reviews and support so far. I hope you enjoy chapter four of Five Years Later.

* * *

Cyborg's system clock clicked over to ten o'clock AM, and he was suddenly awake. The slab of metal that he used as a bed rotated to a nearly vertical angle, and he stepped down from it, stretching more out of habit than necessity. All of his systems were on line, and stretching really didn't do anything for his relatively few remaining organic muscles. The sort of life that he lead tended to overexert the biological components of his system, and most of his original muscles had been replaced by motors and Lexcorp synthetics over the years. He looked the same outwardly, but internally he was down to twenty percent human, if even that.

Of course, that wasn't on his mind, the morning of November 17th. Instead, he was worried by the lack of any noise from Changeling's room. After their fight over the Hive kids and Jinx, Cyborg had come back to their hideout, and spent hours repairing and cleaning the T-Car. He'd damaged it with his tantrum, and fixing it gave him a way to keep himself occupied, and give himself time to calm down about everything. He knew the drill as well as Changeling. It happened all the time. He'd spend a while fixing machines, and eventually wear himself out enough that he needed to go recharge. Then, a few hours later, Changeling would 'sneak' in and go to his own room. Of course the computer would log entry, and Cyborg could hear footsteps a hundred yards away, so sneaking wasn't really possible. Still, it was a tradition of sorts.

Right now, there was no sound from Changeling's room. No breathing, no slight murmuring in his sleep, nothing. He'd never come home. The computer confirmed that Changeling hadn't entered the building last night. Cyborg frowned, as he pressed the switch on the nearby console to start the automated cooking process in the kitchen area. It wasn't unheard of for Changeling to stay out somewhere, but it was rare enough to cause concern. The fight hadn't been that bad, but it was a dangerous town these days, and Changeling could have run into trouble.

Cyborg walked out into the living area, closing his bedroom door behind him. The place was a mess, as usual. The roles had been reversed since Titans' Tower. Changeling kept his room relatively clean, as compared to the constant piles of parts and wiring that littered the rest of their home. Cyborg had always intended to fix the place up, add a better security system, or at least a decent home theater, but had never gotten around to it. There wasn't as much fun in it, if it was just there to show off to Changeling.

Scolding himself for thinking too much, Cyborg took the plate of ham and eggs from the counter, and the glass of milk. The computerized kitchen made things pretty easy. As he sat down to eat, the silence got to him, and he couldn't help but think over the situation. Changeling had been gone all night. That probably meant that he'd gone to some hotel. Either that, or he had been captured by the police, or God forbid, some villain. Without having to move a finger, Cyborg switched on the tracker with his circuits. His electronic eye displayed a few seconds of flashing coordinates, which he didn't even bother to read. After a moment, the tracking signal was triangulated to a point a few blocks away. Changeling was headed home. Good, he was safe, even if he was moving slowly.

He was probably doing something stupid, like walking home as a green dog. Obviously, one of the two wanted felons that live in the building should be walking around outside like that.

Felons. Is that what they were? As far as the law in Jump City was concerned, it was. Jinx had died, accident or no, and Cyborg had escaped from justice. That made Changeling an accomplice, or at the very least, guilty of harboring a fugitive. Not that the police ever really went after them, but it was always a possibility. The police force of Jump City was a pragmatic group. They knew that having superheroes that didn't routinely kill people was a good idea, as it kept the big problems like Plasmus or Cinderblock under control. Arresting two of the four people in town capable of defending the city would be a bad idea.

Jinx. Of course it always came back around to her. Cyborg tossed the plate towards the sink, and it was deftly caught by a thin mechanical arm, and placed into the automated washer, next to the glass that had come before it. Cyborg sat back down, closing his eyes and thinking. An image came up in his electronic mind. Jinx, smiling at him at the end of the Sadie Hawkins dance, back when he'd attended Hive Academy. He didn't know quite why he'd remembered her from so long ago. She was so young then, and she had a certain excitement that seemed to follow her everywhere. She lived dangerously, and never seemed to mind it.

Look where it had gotten her. She had dated Kid Flash for a time, only a few months, but enough time to change her. After their unpleasant break up, she'd returned to the Hive. She never seemed quite as content to stay a low level criminal after that. The jobs that the Hive had been taking started to escalate. It hadn't taken all that long for things to become dangerous for everyone, and beyond the abilities of the Titans to ignore her. For the longest time, it seemed that every encounter with her turned into a sort of intervention, as if the Titans could convince her to rejoin their dwindling group. It never worked.

Time had dulled the Titans' desire to reform her, however, as it quickly became apparent that she was a criminal at heart. Still, the constant attention had forced the Hive to play it safe, keeping their heists relatively low key, until that mess with the Xenothium. The video obediently played back in his eye, and he couldn't help but watch it again. Poor girl. He knew, academically, that it hadn't been his fault. He'd intended to hit Mammoth. Cyborg frowned. He'd been over this a thousand times in his mind already, there was no point in rehashing it now.

The trial for his accident had been grueling. A media circus, really. Everyone seemed to want to see the Titan who had fallen so far from grace. Nightwing had been there, as had Starfire. Raven was in Azerath at the time. He'd seen it in their eyes as well. They thought he was a murderer. Everyone did. As the trial had continued, and the prosecution continued to demonize him, he'd become angry with the entire procedure. During one night, quite some time after the beginning of the trial, and likely even longer before it would have ended, Cyborg had simply torn the jail cell apart with his hands, and walked out of the place. The few policemen who had fired shots at him had missed, or had seen their shots ricochet off of his armored body.

Since then, they had been on the run. Nightwing had made it his mission, for a time, to capture Cyborg. They had begun a tradition of fighting on sight. Still, other concerns kept arising, and eventually it had seemed as if Nightwing had forgotten about him. Cyborg grimaced. He wished that he could forget it as well.

A synthetic female voice spoke quietly in the room, from one of the speakers casually wired in the corner. "Proximity Alert. DNA Match: Changeling. DNA Failure: Unknown Humanoid."

Suddenly, Cyborg found himself alert again. Changeling was moving too slowly to be under attack, so it couldn't be that he was being chased. The unknown wasn't a bug or a dog or anything like that, since it was humanoid, and his police band scanner program would have reported any simian escapees from the zoo. So that meant that he was showing some person where they lived. He called out to the computer, instead of just doing it in his mind, because he liked the feeling of doing something more directly. "Show visual from camera 'Entry Seventeen' on screen one."

The video screen hanging on the east wall lit, and a few seconds later, showed the view from a video camera a little bit ahead of Changeling. Typical sewer view, though there was no refuse in this area of the sewer tunnels. They had been out of use for ages, and thus made a decent hideout. The only movement was from the rats, which the computer was programmed to ignore. Cyborg waited patiently. The voice, now that he was concentrating, was easy to catch.

"Look out, the floor drops a little there. ... Good."

"How far?" The voice was familiar, but Cyborg couldn't quite place it.

"Not too much farther. I'm sure he knows we are coming anyway, don't you, Vic?" Changeling stepped into the picture here, glancing at the camera. At first, Cyborg felt guilty, as if he'd been spotted, but then realized that Changeling had probably glared at every camera as he'd approached. He was being followed, however, by someone in a black looking cloak, walking slowly and covered in filth. He or she had apparently fallen a few times while walking through the sewer. Changeling was wearing a small satchel, though he didn't seem to be favoring that side, so it must not have been too heavy.

It suddenly occurred to Cyborg that Changeling had referred to him as "Vic". It wasn't as if he could really maintain a secret identity, with his obvious disfigurement, but he knew Changeling well enough to know that when he started using real names, he was serious. The Titans, when they had been Titans, had almost always used their superheroic titles. As they had gotten older, the real names had begun to slip in. For whatever reason, Changeling had associated the real names with a form of maturity, and so he used "Vic" only when he wanted to make sure that Cyborg was paying attention.

Cyborg clicked the audio output of that section on, and spoke. "Yeah, I see you, man. Who is that? The scanners don't recognize 'em."

"He never programmed them for me?"

"We thought you'd left, remember? He'll know you, even if the computer doesn't."

The hooded figure reached up and pulled back her hood, looking up at the camera that Changeling pointed out. It was Raven... or it had been once. Cyborg was off the couch and out of the door in less than a second. In three seconds, he was out of the hideout. At the fifth second, he heard her voice speak, wavering in doubt. "He... he didn't say anything."

It took him nine long, painful seconds to reach them. When he got there, he wasted no more time. He ran to Raven, and picked her up excitedly, but lightly, holding the girl close, happy to see her after so long, but horrified at the change in her. He had heard her gasp in surprise at first, but there was a slight, and partially hidden, laugh of glee as he picked her up and hugged her. He set her back down gently, and knelt so that he could see her eye to eye. He put a hand on her delicate shoulder, but did not rest it's weight on her. She seemed as if it would break her. "Raven... what happened to you, girl?"

Raven smiled weakly, and sadly. "I waited for you. For the Titans. Finally, one came back."

She looked towards Changeling, and smiled. He grinned at Cyborg. "Uh, yeah, I found her last night. She's had a hard couple of years, Vic. Can you carry her to the hideout? She wouldn't let me do it, but maybe she will be ok with it now."

She was so light, and Cyborg cringed as he lifted her. His hands could feel her bones through her costume. There was absolutely no fat on the girl, and nearly no muscle. She was dying, or at least she would be if she kept starving herself. They moved quickly now, though carefully. In another silent minute, they were inside again. Cyborg set Raven down inside the sealed door, and they all walked at her pace, taking the time required to let her walk herself to the couch inside, and sit down. Changeling seemed to waste no time at all in fetching the automatically cooked tofu eggs from the counter and handing them to her, along with the soy milk.

Raven looked at the food doubtfully at first, but then took the fork he handed her, and at least made an attempt to eat. She smiled weakly, after the first two bites. "It's been a while... since you forced me to eat tofu."

"Better than rats."

Cyborg couldn't stay quiet any more. "Rats? You've been eating rats?"

Changeling spoke as Raven ate. "Yeah, she's been living in the tower. She was sort of out of contact with the real world for a while. Don't press it, she starts to freak out."

Raven placed the plate down on the floor in front of the couch, and shook her head. She spoke as if neither of them had said anything about rats. "I can't eat more. I'm still full from last night."

"Raven, I thought you went to Azerath. Why were you still in the Tower?" Cyborg tried to act nonthreatening. It was obvious that Raven was not well, physically nor mentally.

Raven shuddered, and pulled her hood over her head again. "Someone had to stay. In case everyone came back. I had to stay. It worked, anyway. You are all coming back."

A smile, one of true happiness, came to Raven's face. It was as if she had fought long and hard for some major victory, and now it was all finally coming together. "He came back first. Beast Boy did, and he brought me food. Then she was there too. Starfire came in, and they were both there with me. We came to find you, and Starfire is waiting for us in the Tower."

"Star? What about-"

"No, Nightwing isn't there yet. He will be though. Can you at least act decent about it?" Changeling didn't directly state a threat, but Cyborg could almost see him bristling. After noticing that, Cyborg could suddenly see something he hadn't before. Changeling was protecting Raven. His body language showed it clear as a bell. He had been the first to find her, and now he seemed as if he was worried that someone else would hurt her somehow. He seemed to almost be daring Cyborg to say something bad about Nightwing.

Cyborg did not relish the idea of Nightwing being anywhere around him, but he had little choice, when faced with Raven like this. "Well... Fine. Maybe it's time we hashed things out anyway. High schools have a five year reunion sometimes, right? Maybe we should too."

Raven visibly relaxed. Apparently she had been worried also. Cyborg's facial expression didn't change, but inwardly, he felt relieved. It was hard to qualify the extent of mental illnesses, but at least Raven didn't seem to harbor any illusions that everything would be perfect if the Titans gathered in one place. She hadn't entirely lost touch.

"So, what now? Are y'all just going to head back to the Tower?"

Changeling shook his head. "Not right yet. Raven needs to shower. God knows how long it's been for her."

He stood, and held out his hand. Raven took it without hesitation, and held on to it as he walked her to his bathroom. He tossed her a clean towel from his closet, and she caught it, looking irritated. That look almost made Cyborg smile, as it reminded him of the old Raven. Raven closed the door behind her, and Changeling turned back towards Cyborg.

"Vic, are you going to be alright with this?" Changeling's voice was serious, and his expression had changed from the faked lightheartedness that he'd shown Raven. He looked stern, obviously concerned with Cyborg's reaction to the talk of Nightwing.

Cyborg sat down on the edge of Changeling's bed, and sighed. "I don't know, man. You know how he is."

"Yeah, I do. But I also know that you don't really help keep the peace whenever we meet up."

"What-" Cyborg started to object, but Changeling cut him off.

"You don't. You fight him just as readily as he fights you. Star sees him come in covered in bruises and with ringing ears just as often as I see you come back with broken circuits and EMP-fried weapons. It's obvious what happened when no criminal escapes were reported and nothing was on the news. You guys are going to have to put your problems behind you." Changeling looked angry, and Cyborg couldn't really argue with him.

Cyborg sighed again, then stood up, looking Changeling in the eye. "Fine. I won't start a fight. But you know what's going to happen."

Changeling nodded. "Yeah, he's going to talk about her. Since you know it's coming, don't react like you always do."

"It was an accident." The words had been repeated so often that they sounded completely hollow.

"I know, man."

The shower water in the bathroom stopped running, and the room suddenly sounded far too quiet. The silence settled heavily for a few moments. Cyborg spoke quietly, but it still seemed loud. "Raven is pretty bad off."

Changeling shrugged. "She's getting better pretty quick. When I first found her, she was making these weird images with her powers, having fake Titans walking around and acting out our old lives. It was really freaky. I still think she's a little off, and she has a real paranoia about people leaving her, but I think she'll recover, and probably pretty soon."

They could both hear the sound of scissors from the bathroom. Apparently Raven was trying to clean herself up as much as possible. Cutting her matted and overly long hair would help a great deal in that regard. Cyborg sat down heavily on the bed again. "So, what's the plan?"

"I don't know. I can tell you that Raven will probably want to go back to the Tower as soon as she's done. I think that's a good idea. We all have to at least try to talk it out."

Shaking his head, Cyborg sighed. "Man, it's not going to work. Even if we talk everything through, and we reform the team, or fix the tower, or whatever else... It's not going to work."

Raven's voice came from the direction of the bathroom. "It has to. Just like you have to give me my costume back."

Changeling grinned over at Raven, who had poked her head out from the bathroom door, while keeping herself hidden. "Oh yeah, I forgot."

He handed her the satchel he'd been carrying, and she pulled back into the room, closing and locking the door behind her. He laughed a little. "She's a lot more like herself when she isn't nervous about friends. There are moments when I forget that she's not the same Raven we all knew."

Cyborg stood, and walked out of the room, telling Changeling that he'd be back in a minute. A few moments passed, and he came back through the door, carrying a duffel bag bulging with mechanical tools and parts. "Hey, if she lives in the Tower, and we are all going back there, I've got to have something to help me get started on fixing it, right?"

Raven opened the bathroom door, and smiled when she saw Cyborg carrying the tools. She looked a bit better. She was a great deal less filthy, and her hair was cut to it's old style again. Of course, she smelled like men's shampoo, but that could be fixed easily enough, next time she showered. She was still far too thin, and her costume was too small anyway, making it fit really strangely on her body. "Where did you find this costume, Beast Boy?"

Changeling smiled, looking at his old friend. "It was in storage, in the basement. It was from two years before the Titans broke up, so it's a little small, I know. Still, it's better than that mess you were wearing before."

"Hey man, you never let me call you 'Beast Boy' anymore. What, you like Raven more than you like me now?"

Raven's smirk reminded them all of better times. "He can't act like he's grown up around me. I know him too well."

Changeling faked an exasperated sigh, and walked over to Raven, putting his arm around her shoulders, and helping her walk forward. She didn't really need the help, but she didn't stop him. Changeling grinned at Cyborg. "C'mon. Let's go back home."

* * *

It wasn't that much longer before Cyborg found himself in the tower again, heading down from the roof and rushing, at Raven's request, towards the Operations room. In a surprising show of recovered ability, Raven had flown herself to the Tower, and Changeling had only been required to carry Cyborg. Still, she didn't seem to want to wait long to make sure that everything was still ok with Starfire, and had rushed down the staircase to the top floor of the building as quickly as she could.

They passed through the destroyed doors of Operations, which Cyborg noticed ape-sized knuckle dents in, and found Starfire impatiently waiting for them. Raven immediately rushed towards the woman, and hugged her closely. Cyborg realized that Raven had half expected Starfire to leave them all again. Starfire and Raven laughed happily, both pleased to see the other unharmed and present. Starfire put Raven back down, and then looked over towards Cyborg, her smile faltering slightly. They'd seen too much combat with each other to really be as close as they had been once.

Still, she walked over to him, and he had a chance to really look at her. She'd grown, a great deal, since the breakup of the Titans. She was tall, muscular, and almost Amazonian in appearance. If she hadn't gone into superheroics, she could have had a lucrative career as a supermodel. She was also heavily armored, but Cyborg could understand that. Everyone had to have thick skin to live these days. She stopped, standing in front of him impassively and intimidatingly, then smiled again. "It is nice to see you again, Cyborg."

"You too, Star. I know I've been sorta... well, you know. We still friends?" Cyborg held out his hand, hoping she'd at least be willing to shake on starting over.

Instead, she threw her arms around him and hugged him, lifting him slightly off of the ground as she did so. He'd forgotten how strong the woman was. "Victor, we will always be friends. No amount of fighting will change that."

Changeling sat down on the couch, with Raven, and picked up a box of old stir fry, holding it open and towards Cyborg. "Hey, this is cold."

Cyborg looked at it, activating the infrared output of his eye, and in a few seconds, the invisible beam heated the food. He'd intended his eye to be a weapon, like Superman's heat vision, but it had consumed far too much power. Changeling brought the food back down, laying it in Raven's lap, and handing her the fork. "I'm not going to let you stop eating, Raven. Hey, Star, go get our other friend, ok?"

Starfire nodded, though she looked concerned. "I am uncertain that I will be able to bring him here easily. He is most difficult to speak with sometimes."

Cyborg frowned. "Yeah, he's always right about everything, isn't he?"

Starfire glared at him, and he involuntarily shrank away a bit. Her anger was often scarier than even Raven's. "You must avoid comments like that when he is here. I do not wish to fight here, not with our friend being so troubled."

"Yeah, sorry. Sorry, just... old habits die hard, alright?"

Starfire nodded, her angry expression replaced again with one of worry. "I will seek him. Do not worry, Raven, I will return soon."

Raven watched as Starfire flew away, leaving through the doorway. Cyborg could see her body tense up, the worry of abandonment creeping back into her. It was quickly replaced by irritation as Changeling stuck a piece of broccoli into her mouth without asking. Raven glared at him, but ate the broccoli anyway.

Cyborg looked around the room. "Man, this place is a mess. I don't even know where to begin."

Changeling shrugged, watching Raven eat. "You always tell me to start with something easy, then keep going until the whole job is done. Why don't you start with getting power to work in this room?"

Cyborg shrugged. "That's as good as anything, I guess." He looked around again, and then found the spot he was looking for. A few seconds with his fingertip screwdriver, and he had removed the wall panel covering the emergency generator for this floor. It was remarkably well-preserved, having been behind a watertight panel, and it even had a bit of fuel left. Only enough for an hour or two, but still useful. He started work immediately, checking over all the mechanisms of the generator, making certain that it wouldn't blow up in his face if he tried to start it.

Time passed fairly quickly, the only noise in the room was the sound of his tinkering with the machine, and Changeling constantly pestering Raven to eat more. Raven had changed again, from her old style of action to her new worried and meek persona. Starfire leaving had apparently affected her more than it really should have. Still, things were fairly peaceful for the next thirty minutes.

Then, the sound of a motorboat came drifting up from outside. Cyborg kept working on the generator, trying to avoid listening to every little sound. Let Nightwing and Starfire have their privacy. It was only a minute or two, however, before he heard footsteps enter the room, and then he heard Raven get up from the couch, and run across the room again, crying happily.

He turned around, and met Nightwing's eyes. He was entirely unsurprised to find Nightwing's posture to be just as judgmental and arrogant as ever. Still, he was holding Raven closely, and it was obvious that he would do whatever he could to help her. Even Cyborg knew him well enough that he didn't doubt that. Raven moved in his arms, looking back over her shoulder, at Cyborg, with worry in her eyes. She felt it too. Even with everyone together, it still wasn't the Titans again. Not yet, anyway.

Without much else to say, Cyborg broke the silence before it got too oppressive. "Alright y'all, we're back. Now what?"

His feigned lighthearted voice was completely transparent. Still, no one called him on it directly. A few seconds passed, and then Changeling uttered a nervous laugh. "Heh, I kinda expected Slade to pop up out of nowhere and start a fight. You know, to make us a team again or something."

Cyborg turned around, and pressed a button on the generator. The machine clicked once, twice, and then sputtered loudly, kicking to life. The fluorescent lights in the room sparked, and then about a quarter of them turned on. Cyborg grinned. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than he'd expected. "Well, lights are back on."

"Fixing the tower won't fix everything, Cyborg." Nightwing's voice was low, and sounded almost sad. He led Raven back to the couch, sitting her next to Changeling, and then sat down on the other end of the semicircular couch himself. He looked over towards Cyborg. "There are more problems here than just Raven and the Tower falling apart."

Starfire objected. "Raven has not fallen apart. I do not wish to hear you speaking like that."

"That's not his point, Star." Cyborg walked over to the opposite end of the couch from Nightwing, and sat down heavily, facing him. "He's talking about Jinx."

The name hung in the air like a gunshot. Cyborg could tell that mentioning her directly had an effect on everyone in the room, except for Raven, who merely looked confused. Starfire looked away, hiding her face from everyone. Changeling looked nervous, as if he half expected combat. Nightwing's face adopted that stern and set look that he used whenever he was trying to hide how judgmental and sanctimonious he was.

Raven was the first to speak, in her old style of speaking, her voice taking on a mildly irritated sound. "Jinx? What does she have to do with anything?"

Cyborg didn't look at Raven. Instead, he looked Nightwing dead in the eyes. "I killed her."

"What? You did what? When?" Raven's stoic facade failed entirely. Moments like that normally made Changeling grin smugly. Not this time.

"About two years ago." Nightwing held Cyborg's stare without flinching. "He shot her with so much power that she was nearly torn in half. He murdered her."

Starfire walked across the room, and stood behind Changeling and Raven, near the center of the couch. "Nightwing, it was not murder. You are not so stupid as you act."

Raven turned towards Cyborg. "Why?"

Cyborg took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "It was... an accident. I'm not hesitating because I'm lying, and you all know that. We all also know that Mammoth could take a shot from my sonic cannon at full power, and still be alive. I was firing at him, and Jinx jumped in front of the shot. It was no one's fault."

"Tell her that." Nightwing's voice had too much anger in it.

"Do I have to say it? We both know what my answer to your crap about Jinx is."

Nightwing's eyes narrowed sharply.

Cyborg leaned forward. "Or would you rather share with everyone why exactly Slade isn't going to just spring out of nowhere and attack us?"

"Slade died of radiation poisoning." Nightwing's voice was flat and even.

Starfire looked away, turning her back to the rest of them.

Cyborg frowned. "Yeah, solar radiation. Who here uses that?"

Her voice was cold, but angry as well. She spoke without turning around to face them again. "I do not wish to discuss this."

A silence fell over the group. It hung in the air oppressively, and was harder and harder to break with every agonizing second that passed. The backup generator still churned in the wall, but it was quiet compared to the deafening silence.

Raven spoke, her voice sounding extremely loud in the relative quiet. No one would mention it, but under her strong facade, her voice was wavering with doubt. "We aren't perfect. We never were. Rob-... Nightwing, you are too... focused. You ignore your own health and everyone else's feelings in pursuit of an impossible ideal. Changeling and I both have darkness inside that we cannot afford to release. Cyborg... you've made mistakes, and so have you, Starfire. Nothing we can do will bring either Slade or Jinx back. The past is past, and cannot be altered."

Changeling spoke with feigned amusement. "I think that's the most you've ever said at one time that wasn't part of some prophecy."

Starfire turned around, looking at Raven. "You are sounding more like yourself."

"I'm doing the best that I can. Having all of you here makes me feel like a kid again."

Cyborg sighed. "Raven, we might have been young, but it's been a long time since we were kids.."

"We have been acting like children, Vic." Nightwing stood up, holding his hand out to Cyborg.

Cyborg took his hand, and stood up as well. Changeling stood, and then helped Raven up. He put his hand on top of theirs. Raven followed suit. Flying overhead, Starfire landed opposite Raven and Changeling, placing her hand on top.

Starfire's voice showed her smile, even if her face was serious. "We are Titans."

Cyborg smiled. "It's time we started acting like it."

Changeling's face showed his relief. "This place is sort of a mess."

Nightwing smirked. "We can fix it."

"Together." Raven looked at her friends, and smiled.

* * *

A/N: No, everything isn't perfect. They still have a lot of work to do, both physical and interpersonal. Chapter five is the final chapter of this story, probably. Please review. The next update will come out fairly soon, I hope. Until then, enjoy. 


	5. Raven

Review Responses:

Kayasuri-n: Well, things tend to get better in my fics over time. I have a hard time writing abjectly depressing endings. Last chapter 'cause it can't go on forever, you know.

SxStrngSamurai13: Starfire is a trained warrior princess and really dangerous in the comics. I sorta drew from there a bit with her characterization here. Besides, if you look at the way she acts in "Go", she's a bit violent and warriorish. The fic has to end sometime, and this is a good spot. There may be an epilogue anyway.

hoshi-ko88: Sorry to disappoint with the length, but it's got to end at some point. After I started with focusing each chapter on one character, I figured that five chapters would be a good stopping point. I'm glad you like the fic though. Hopefully you'll enjoy the ending.

SithKnight-Galen: I'm glad you like the story. The character flaws and mistakes in the past are central to the fic. Nightwing has to deal with both lethal mistakes, but does it differently for each of them. He responded to Cyborg's with vengeance, and Starfire's with denial. He's sort of a weird guy. Here's the last chapter, hopefully you'll like it as well.

AnimeChick009: It's hard to set aside years of resentment. Raven was pretty bad, but things are getting a bit better. Here's the final chapter!

BLIvorySS: Sorry it's taken me so long to update, I've been quite busy as well. I liked the way Cyborg's chapter came out as well. His problems are a large portion of the breakup of the Titans, but I try to make his motivations understandable also. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks, here's the next chapter.

StormDancer: Four months is fairly soon, I'm sure. Actually, no, it isn't. Sorry for the delay, but here's the conclusion.

* * *

**A/N: FOUR MONTHS**. Sorry that it took so long to update. Real life, new job, etc. etc. Normal excuses. This is the final chapter of the story proper, though I may write a short epilogue afterwords. Enough of my talking. Enjoy the story.

* * *

Starfire had said that they were Titans. They all had been, years ago. Raven knew that they were trying, but... it didn't feel like the Titans. There was a happiness, a strange kind of hope, in all of them right now. Her powers could see that much. However, there was still too much resentment, too much anger, and too much... tension. It felt as though Cyborg and Nightwing were both simply waiting for the inevitable crash. 

Raven's hand felt warm, from where they had all touched, declaring themselves Titans again. Nightwing had pulled away first, and now was placing a small earbud in his ear. More tension, but now from Starfire. It was also tinged with jealousy.

Nightwing spoke to no one, but held his hand to his ear, apparently communicating over a radio of some variety. "Oracle, you there? ... No, I'm fine. ... No, she didn't kill me. Look, I know you are busy, but I need about..."

He paused a moment, looking around the room. "Fifty million dollars."

Wincing, he pulled the earpiece away, glaring at it as an angry, female voice shouted from it. After a moment, he replaced it. "Yes, I know. Look, we both know Bru--... Batman has it to spare. Pull up the file named T-T-Scenario-3-dot-t-x-t on my computer. Have Lucius get that stuff shipped to the Tower, as an urban renewal budget or something. ... When? ... Ok, thanks. Later, Oracle."

He smiled at Raven, and she couldn't help but feel glad to see his smile again. Even more so, she was happy that someone could smile at her. It seemed like everyone was grimacing at her recently, or staring in pity. "Don't worry, Raven. We'll have the tower fixed in no time."

Changeling's voice was incredulous. "Dude, you had a file on your computer for fixing the Tower? How do you plan for us getting back together when we didn't even think about it until just today?"

"I didn't. I thought I might need the Tower for my own place, if something happened to the apartment."

Tension. Merged with anger. Cyborg's voice didn't require an empath to see his emotion. "So you were plannin' on just taking over our old place whenever you wanted? Just like how you're taking the lead again now?"

Immediately, Raven was flooded with the sudden near-panic of Changeling and Starfire. It didn't help that she felt it on her own as well. "Wait, Cyborg, I don't think he's..."

"I'm taking command, because I'm the team leader. I've always been the leader of the Titans."

Cyborg smirked, but not from mirth. "Yeah, doin' such a good job of it too. Never seen the city in better shape. Maybe you're also the reason Gotham is such a hole."

"Dude, shut up. Don't start this again." Changeling's eyebrows were furrowed, and his hands had tensed into fists. Raven could sense that it wasn't just an involuntary response.

Nightwing's hand moved to his belt, near the EMP charges. "Vic, I'm more experienced. I've been doing this for nearly my entire life. I'm the best choice for leader."

Starfire's eyes were glowing dangerously. "Do not draw a weapon, Nightwing. There is no need for fighting here."

Raven noticed with interest that Nightwing's hand immediately stopped. She felt him chastise himself for even reaching for it. Maybe there was still hope for the team.

Cyborg frowned. "You can't play that card anymore, man. I fought Trigon the Terrible. I've beaten the Brotherhood of Evil. We both have. Experience only goes so far. Look, if you are leading, I don't think I can do this, alright? We've done that before, and we know where it goes."

"Then who is going to do it? You? You held the Titans East together for all of a weekend!" Nightwing's voice was combative, but at least he kept his hands empty.

Raven's voice was quiet, she barely even heard herself. "It doesn't matter."

Changeling looked at her, though no one else even seemed to notice that she'd spoken.

"That's a low blow, man. You know that was Brother Blood doin' that. Besides, I know more about the Tower than anyone. I'm better for what we have to do now."

Raven, tired of the rising anger and panic in the psychic landscape of the room, spoke loudly, while using her powers to hold the two people's mouths shut. "Enough! It's not important right now who leads."

The anger and tension only ebbed slightly, though Nightwing was frustrated by his lack of control, and Cyborg felt foolish for dropping so quickly into an argument. Raven felt surprise from Changeling, and a sort of satisfied smugness from Starfire. It was unnerving to suddenly feel everyone around her again. It had been some time since she'd been in such a situation. She released her silencing control. "Nightwing, I know you resent it, but Cybo-... Vic knows more about the tower, and he's better with repairs and logistics. He will lead the tower repairs. We can worry about tactical leadership later."

She felt herself wobble slightly, and before she could think, Changeling's hands gently caught her shoulders, holding her steady. She tried to maintain her firm countenance, despite her physical weakness.

Nightwing looked at her with an odd expression, and she could feel him judging something about her, though she didn't pry enough to find out what. After a moment, he sighed. "Fine. Look... I'm sorry, Vic. Raven's right; I don't like following orders. She's also correct about you knowing more about the tower. I'll defer to you for the moment."

Cyborg tensed at the "for the moment", but held himself in check. After a moment's hesitation, he looked over at Raven. "So what first, Rae?"

"I... don't know. I guess... We will need electricity to repair the tower. Do you think you could get the main generator working again?" Raven wasn't sure why she was being asked.

Cyborg paused a moment, thinking. "Probably. It's Gordanian tech; so it probably held up pretty well. With Star's help, it shouldn't take long."

Starfire nodded. "Very well. I shall accompany you. Dick... thank you for calming yourself."

"Thank Raven. Call me if you need help." Nightwing turned back to Raven. "Are you ok? You look weak."

Raven frowned. "I'm fine." Though she said that, she was still leaning heavily on Changeling's hands to keep her upright.

Nightwing looked around. "Most of the Tower is going to need to be completely redone. I'll make some calls for some mainland storage space. We're going to need to sort through all the mess for whatever we want to keep."

Changeling nodded. "Makes sense. Look, Nightwing..."

"What?" Nightwing had an unreadable expression on his face.

"I just... Look, stay cool with Vic, alright? It's not like he hates you; he's just got issues with leadership, and Jinx, and everything else. Just try to lay off him for a while."

Nightwing nodded. "Yeah. We'll work on the hostility thing. I've got to make some calls."

He was out of the door and down the hall before either of the two remaining Titans could respond. Raven could sense the frustration in both Nightwing and Changeling, but knew that it was just something that would have to be worked out in time. No one could expect recent rivals to be completely happy together so soon.

Changeling's hands gently squeezed her shoulders, but she sensed that he was only seeking her attention. "Want to go sort out what you want to keep from your room?"

* * *

They walked separately, despite Changeling's worry over her. Raven felt strange, with the tower suddenly full of life again. The windowless corridor they were now in was dark, even though it was approaching midday outside. However, she could feel the bright emotions of the other Titans in the tower. Cyborg's calculating study of the Gordanian power generator, Starfire careful optimism of the reformed team, and Nightwing's frustration as he argued with Oracle. Changeling, so close to her, was the strongest aura to her at the moment. He was worried about her. It was mildly annoying to Raven to be worried over, pitied, and despaired at all the time now. Still, his worry was understandable, and he'd been nothing but helpful. 

The silence was a little oppressive, as they walked slowly down the hallway. Raven didn't want to overtax herself, and Changeling was matching her pace. Raven forced herself to speak, but didn't really know what to say. "Beast-... Changeling, why did you come back to the tower?"

His aura shifted from worried concern to worried embarrassment. "Uh, heh. Actually I sort of came to beat you up. Well, not you specifically, but whoever was in the tower. I was flying around outside and saw the light on. It made me feel kinda possessive, you know?"

"So it wasn't because you were interested in reforming the Titans, or because you were curious about me."

Changeling shook his head. "No, it wasn't. You'd know if I was lying, so I won't say that was the reason."

Raven nodded slowly, and looked up, having reached her door. It was welded shut. "Is everyone... are the Titans only trying this because of me? Once I get better, if I start eating and I get used to people being around me again, will you all... will you..."

She found that she couldn't say the word 'leave'. Raven shuddered at the thought of being alone again. Truly alone.

It felt strange when he reached out and held her, pulling her gently against him. He would never have done this when they were teenagers. To be honest, she would have already attacked him, were they the same people that they had been then. However, after sleeping on the couch with him for most of the night, and after all the help he had been to her, she didn't want to pull away immediately. When he spoke, she could feel his voice through his chest as well as hear it, pressed together with him. "Raven, you know that you shocked Starfire and I into staying, but you also know that you being thin and lonely isn't enough to reform the team. I can feel the tension in the air, you don't have to be an empath for that. But I can also tell that everyone really wants this to work. Even Cyborg and Nightwing. Don't worry, everyone is really going to try for this, ok?"

She stayed for a moment, before her mind reminded her that she wasn't supposed to let people touch her. At least, the old Raven wasn't supposed to. She found that she wasn't entirely certain what she was supposed to do anymore. She pushed away gently, and he let her go, smiling. "Sorry, you just sort of looked like you needed it. Hey, think we should go thank Star for welding your door shut?"

Normally Raven might have pointed out the obvious attempt at changing the subject, but she wasn't entirely unappreciative of it. "It's not difficult to get through."

A thin slice of telekinetic power ran the length of the weld. Raven immediately felt dizzy, and nearly collapsed. Changeling caught her again. "Raven, stop doing that. Your powers are too much for you right now. Wait until you're better."

Raven nodded weakly, then pulled away, standing by herself. "Could you open the door then?"

The man grinned lopsidedly, and Raven almost smiled, as it was so like the boy she once knew. He stayed human and just hooked his fingers into the broken weld. He planted his feet and pulled, and the door groaned as it opened, the rough treatment by Starfire having broken it more than she had thought.

"Ow. I forget how sharp metal can be when it's cut like that." Changeling pulled his hands back, wincing at the line of blood forming across the cuts.

Raven raised an eyebrow. "How often do you see metal that's been cut by demonic magic?"

His smile was honest, and she felt happy to have made him do it. "There you go. You're acting more like yourself all the time."

She reached out for his hand. He seemed to hesitate a moment, but let her look. Before he could stop her, she exerted the power required. Her hands glowed gently pale blue, and his skin sealed again. She struggled to stay upright and not show how drained she felt. "Th... There. You've... healed me, so I can at least do the same."

He nodded, and she could tell he was just not wanting to bother her by constantly telling her to stop using her powers. He turned and stepped into the room, and Raven found that since she was still holding his previously injured hand, she was tugged along. The room was lit now, as the pale light streamed from the window. Raven wasn't really surprised at the state of the place, as she'd been living there, in a way, for years. She felt him reel in revulsion at the pile of... well, it used to be rats. She felt offended, guilty, and embarrassed all at once. She hadn't had much choice in what to eat here. Still, she felt as if she'd lowered herself to living like an animal, and now that she felt his thoughts moving almost along those lines as well, she felt ashamed. No... no, that's not exactly what he was feeling. Revulsion and disgust, yes, but pity again as well.

"Don't." Her voice surprised her. She sounded more angry than she'd intended.

His face was a little defensive. "I wasn't going to say anything. You did what you had to."

She shook her head. "No, I mean... Don't pity me. I made the choice to stay here. I made the choice to come back after going to Azerath. I'm not... I know that I was starving, and that I was... away from myself, but I'm not some lost girl that you have to feel sorry for."

He shook his head, and reached over, gently holding both of her hands in his. "Raven, I know you can tell what I'm feeling, so I'm not going to lie. But there's a difference in thinking of you as a damaged person that needs pity, and feeling sorry for you for having to go through this. Yeah, it's pity, but it's not the same thing. Don't worry so much, you're still the strongest person I know, ok?"

Raven paused a moment. She had to admit to herself that it was possible that she was misreading the emotions everyone was feeling, due to her long solitude. At the very least, she shouldn't make assumptions from them. Her hands suddenly felt warm, and she pulled them away from Changeling's. She was beginning to feel too much like her old self to stand here and be comforted like this. She looked around the room, and spoke as if it was completely normal to change the subject so abruptly. "I'm not sure how much of this is worth saving. It's all so damaged."

Changeling's aura showed that he was happy to have a change of subject as well. "Well, your mirror is one thing you'll need. Also that book you always read. Azar's book?"

"The Book of Azar." Raven pulled the book from a nearby shelf. It was the only tome that was completely free of damage. It took more than a leaky roof and ice storms to break through the centuries of magical wards on the book.

Kicking an unreadable book out of the way, Changeling pointed at the floor. "Uh, there's the mirror. If it's all the same, I'm not going to touch it."

Raven allowed herself a smile. He was different. He was older, more mature, and maybe a bit less self-deprecating, but he was still the same person she'd known. She picked up the mirror, and looked around the room. This had been her home, nearly the only place she'd been, for over a year. Aside from hunting, which most of the time was handled by the figments that she had been creating, she hadn't left the room. Suddenly, the entire place was going to be gutted and rebuilt. Nightwing had all but stated it. There was no way to save her bed, her old books, the statues that lay in cracked ruin on the floor... any of it. She sighed.

His hands were on her shoulders again. "It'll be ok. We'll get new creepy furniture for you. We can even see if Wonder Woman can find you one of those Greek Tragedy/Comedy mask things. I know you had one when we were kids."

She didn't say anything, but she instead just leaned against him again, feeling comforted despite her old ways creeping back into her mind. She felt certain, not just through empathy, but though some other sense, that he at least would not leave again. Even if Nightwing and Cyborg couldn't let the past go, she felt as if Changeling at least would stay with her.

As if on cue, the tower shook, as if from an explosion. A rat raced from underneath her bed, and out of the door, looking for solid ground. Changeling sighed heavily. "That was a sonic cannon shot. Want to wait for the EMP, or just head down there now?"

Raven shook her head, and suddenly a shower of sparks came from the shorting lights in the ceiling. An old lamp, laying on the floor in the corner, sputtered momentarily to life, shining brightly for a moment before the bulb filament burned away. "The power generator takes a large starter charge. He did the same thing the first time he had to start it."

* * *

Raven looked at the small pile of personal belongings that had been collected by the Titans. The lights in Operations flickered constantly, the florescent bulbs long past their ideal age. There hadn't been much fit for salvage, apparently. Raven's mirror and the Book of Azar, of course. Starfire had found her old gorka pipes, in surprisingly good condition, as well as a tattered photo album that she was hoping to pull at least a few decently preserved photos from. Nightwing had pulled his old titanium suitcase out of the debris of his room; the momentos and other odds and ends inside were of incalculable sentimental value to him. Cyborg had a few of his smaller sports trophies from high school standing on the half-rotted bases, with the cheap gilding all but gone. Changeling had tossed a few photos of Terra from his room in with Starfire's album, and had also managed to find his old wind-up cymbal monkey toy; it had made him laugh by still being functional. 

All in all, a small pile not even two feet high and three feet wide is all that they planned to keep from the tower. It seemed as if they were throwing away their old lives, instead of repairing it. Still, Changeling's hand on her shoulder, and the warmth of life and emotion from the other Titans, reassured Raven that they were together again, if only for a time. Still...

"It's not much."

Cyborg shrugged. "Yeah, I know Rae. But my room has had a heck of a skylight installed for years now. No one else's is much better."

"We are losing only material possessions. It is not so bad as it seems. We will have one another." Starfire's aura had improved. Her optimism felt less guarded now, and she seemed to be gaining confidence in the team again.

A somewhat sad silence settled over them, as they sat on the decaying couch, looking at their old home, and remembering better times. The silence stretched just long enough to make them all jump from surprise when Nightwing's communicator rang out loudly. After scrambling a moment, he pressed the switch to answer it. The voice sounded rough, but honest enough. "uh... 'ey. I'm lookin' for a... Nightwing? Darkwing?"

"Nightwing, yeah. Are you the foreman of the construction team that the Wayne Foundation sent?"

The voice picked up a bit, as the foreman realized that he was speaking to the correct person. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm the foreman. Look, little problem down here, boss. These... ah... Well you have a couple of fires down here that aren't lettin' us through."

Raven shook her head in annoyance. Her eyes glowed white for a moment, and her voice had a strange echo to it. "Leave."

The voice from the communicator sighed, though it was impossible for him to have heard Raven. "Yeah, ok, Good. Place is clear now; they are gone. We'll get started; just send someone down here who knows what goes where."

Apparently unknowing that he was still transmitting, he continued, his voice faint as he set his communicator down. "Last friggin' time I work with superheroes..."

Nightwing switched the communicator off, looking at the other Titans. His eyes stopped on Cyborg.

"Well, Batman invested fifty million into us. Well, forty eight million, seven hundred thousand, four hundred and thirty eight."

Cyborg shrugged. "BB and I 'been living on no income for I don't know how long. Bruce can deal with losing a half of a percent of his fortune."

Nightwing visibly tensed at Cyborg's casual use of the name, but just shook his head. "What I meant was... Can we get past it? Can we last as a team, and make it worth the effort of repairing this place?"

It was the other Titans' turn to become tense. Raven's empathy felt worthless, as everyone's mind moved from possibility to possibility too fast to read. Everyone was cautious and tense, but more than that, she couldn't tell.

Cyborg looked at Nightwing, and nodded slowly. "Yeah... Yeah, I can work on it. Look, we've both done stuff we shouldn't have, and we all know I've made... mistakes. I think we can let the past be past and get on with it, right?"

Raven let out the breath that she didn't know she'd been holding.

Nightwing leaned forward, though his posture was nonthreatening. "I know you don't like thinking about it, but if we reform the Titans, your address will be pretty public again. What if the courts come after you? You're still technically a fugitive."

Changeling broke in before Cyborg could reply. "Dude, we order Chinese like twice a week, and pizza on Wednesdays. Half of the neighborhood knows where we live, and they all know the reward money. No one cares. If anyone is crazy enough to bother pressing charges again, we'll worry about it when it comes up."

"Agreed. We will incinerate that overpass when we arrive at it."

Nightwing looked over at Starfire, who smiled. "I was curious to see your reaction to my butchering an idiom as I used to do so commonly."

Cyborg and Changeling chuckled slightly, and the tension in the room lifted somewhat. It didn't last long, however. Cyborg's voice was calm, but his words carried enough danger alone. "What's going to happen when the repairs are done?"

Changeling sighed. "Vic..."

Cyborg shook his head. "No, I'm not just going to wait until it happens to discuss this. A team needs a leader, and we have to set it up now."

Nightwing sighed heavily, composing himself. He spoke calmly but firmly. "We've discussed this before, Vic. I'm the most experie-"

"I've already told you that doesn't work anymore. I'm not going to let you take command again."

"Cyborg, Nightwing would follow you just as willingly as you would follow him. Neither of you are capable of taking commands from the other." Starfire's voice had a hint of angry frustration in it. Raven's empathy noted a spike in Starfire's anger as Nightwing frowned, reaching up and shutting off his earbud communicator, apparently in response to some comment by Oracle.

Changeling spoke next, his voice matter of fact, as if what he was suggesting wasn't surprising or unusual in the least. "I say we pick Raven."

Raven turned sharply towards him, and tried to ignore the vague dizziness it caused her. "What?"

Cyborg nodded slowly. "Yeah, maybe. I can see that. What about you, Nightwing?"

"Wait a minute!" Raven protested, and looked at Changeling, to see that odd, lopsided grin on his face again.

Nightwing seemed to think it over for a few seconds. "She's shown good tactical sense in the past, and she can relay commands telepathically. A sound choice, if I'm not in the running."

Raven turned towards Nightwing. Had he just ceded command to her?

Starfire smiled, looking at Raven. "I agree as well. I believe that you will do well as a leader, Raven. You always excel in all things."

Raven looked up at Starfire, then back to the rest of the Titans, and shook her head. "You... I can't lead you. I've never... I haven't even tried to do anything like that before."

Changeling squeezed her shoulders again. "Except this morning, when you told them both to shut up, and assigned Cyborg to lead the reconstruction."

"It was just... I was trying to get them to stop fighting."

He shrugged. "Still, it worked, and Cyborg got the power started again."

Nightwing spoke up, his voice still carefully guarded. "Look, if you don't want to do it, we can't force you. We'll work something out."

Raven closed her eyes and focused, listening to her powers. Everyone was being honest. They weren't laughing at her, or just trying to make her uncomfortable. Well, Changeling was doing a little bit of both, but he also honestly thought that she would be a good leader. She couldn't imagine it. Leading the Titans was something she had never considered before. In a way, it made sense. Raven would know more quickly than the others if she had offended someone with a command or a suggestion, and she could stay in contact with any lost members more effectively than a nonpowered human like Nightwing. The idea was strange, but she felt as if it might be worth trying, at the least.

Her voice wavered, nonetheless. "I... I'll try. You are all hoping that I will say yes. I'll try, for the sake of the Titans."

The others looked almost as surprised as she felt, hearing herself say that she would lead the team. She felt as if she should give some sort of command or another. Still, these were friends of hers. They weren't underlings, or mindless servants, like the flames downstairs had been. She'd never been entirely certain how Robin had felt so comfortable ordering them around like he had. She assumed it had something to do with his upbringing. Still, there was an almost expectant silence over the group. "Uh, well, Cyborg. The foreman said he needed someone down there who knew where everything goes. You're the best for that. Could you go down and help him?"

Cyborg grinned, saluting her with a joking smile. Her powers let her know that he meant no disrespect, but was just joking with her. "Yes Ma'am. I'll be down there if you need me."

"I'll come with you." Nightwing's voice was resolute, but he looked towards Raven anyway.

She nodded. "Yes, go. You two need to work together and get over your issues."

Nightwing reached out a hand, and helped Cyborg stand, and the two men walked towards the staircase. Their body language wasn't friendly, but they didn't seem overtly hostile either. Raven could feel a bit of optimism in both of them, with a healthy amount of skepticism as well. It would take time to repair their friendship, as things like that always did.

Starfire smiled at the two others, and Raven felt some strange sort of jealousy from her. Not of either of them in the sense that they were dating someone she wanted, but she seemed jealous of... Raven couldn't tell. Perhaps she was just remembering her old friendship with Robin, and was admiring the recent closeness of Raven and Changeling. Raven didn't really appreciate the comparison, once her mind had made it. Starfire spoke, her voice sounding as though she knew something about them but didn't want to say it aloud. "I believe that I will go search for other things we made need to keep. There are many boxes in the basement."

She was out the door before Raven could really think of anything else to assign her to do. Besides, her excuse to leave made sense anyway. Raven looked up at Changeling, and he grinned. He almost sounded as if he was trying to stifle a laugh. "She's assuming things again. Star has always tried to be a matchmaker, I think."

He walked around the end of the couch, from where he'd been standing behind her, and sat down nearby, but carefully a bit away from Raven. "So, uh, what do I do, oh fearless leader?"

Raven shook her head. "I feel so strange. I can't lead the Titans."

Her serious tone seemed to shake him a bit. His tone changed from taunting and jokish to serious as well. "Hey, come on, Raven. Sure you're a little weak from hunger and whatever right now, but you're as good a leader as Nightwing. Plus, you're an empath. You'll know what we are trying to do before we do it. You can tell us to keep doing it or stop, faster than he could even figure out what we are trying."

She sighed. "It's not combat that I'm worried about. You are all capable of fighting, with or without a decent leader. I have to know how to split the team when we have to be in more than one place. I have to lead investigations. I will probably have to speak to the public. It's a lot of work."

"So don't be Robin."

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

He smiled at the familiar response. "Yeah, I mean, sure he did all that, but he's just a control freak, bad guy name aside. So let him do the talking to the public thing. Let us decide who goes where when we split up. Nightwing's good with detective work, so listen to him when we are trying to figure stuff out. It's not like you have to do everything yourself."

She smiled. "You're smarter than you look."

He shrugged. "I just look dumber than I am."

"Changeling... Beast Boy... Thank you. I know you didn't mean to when you first came back to the tower, but you've helped me so much. Not just the food, but you've helped pull everyone together again. You've helped me keep it together in front of the others. Even though I'm not sure I can do it, you even helped resolve the leadership thing. Just... Thank you."

He looked a bit shocked by the sudden change in tone. His insecurity about her made her smile, and she could feel the cause of the insecurity through her powers. Strangely enough, his attraction to her didn't bother her as much as it would have when they were younger. It was still a bit strange, as he was a longtime friend, but... she could see how he might feel that way. She wasn't sure, as her emotions were rather wild after such a draining day, but she felt as if she might feel the same way.

He spoke nervously. "Heh... uh... thanks. I mean, you're welcome. I just... Well, I couldn't see you like you were and not help, plus, you know, you're my friend, from back then, and... Uh..."

She stood up, and reached out her hand. He took it and stood as well, looking nervous and uncertain. "I'm going to keep calling you Beast Boy, you know."

He grinned. "Yeah, I figured. Even Vic still calls me BB."

She looked away for a moment, uncertain of her phrasing. "I'm feeling more like my old self. With all of you here again, it's tempting to shield myself from all the emotions running through the team. It's hard to function with my mind so open."

He didn't respond, and she could feel him searching for something to say, but coming up blank.

She looked back at him, and smiled slightly. "There's something I want to say, before I become too much like I used to be. Beast Boy, you know that I'm an empath. You know that I know how you feel."

He blushed like a little kid. The reaction made her smile a bit more. "Uh, yeah, I guess you would. I'm sor-"

"Don't apologize. Don't interrupt me either, not right now." Her voice wasn't harsh; she wasn't reprimanding him. "Look, I know that I'm going to have to shield my mind, and I don't know how I'll feel in a few days, but..."

Words failed her. She wasn't entirely certain how to phrase how she was feeling, without sounding like she was pitying him, or just testing her own feelings on him. So, she did the only thing she could think of that might express her emotions at the moment.

She put her arms around him, leaned towards him, standing on her toes, and pressed her lips to his. She smiled, inwardly, at his almost-panic. His panic calmed quickly, however, and she felt his arms move around her as well, holding her close for the few moments that the kiss lasted. She pulled her lips away after only a couple of seconds. She was completely unable to read his emotions, as hers were too loud at the moment. "I... I just..."

He shook his head, and smiled. "Don't apologize. You know how I felt. Well, how I feel."

She smiled, and leaned her head against his chest. "I don't... I'm not sure I'll be able to feel this way after I meditate and shield myself again, but... I wanted you to know that I did right now."

She felt his aura shift, and he tilted his head slightly. He must have heard someone coming. She pulled away, and they were standing apart from one another when the door opened, revealing Cyborg, Nightwing, and two construction workers carrying a crate with "Waynetech" emblazoned on the side.

Cyborg pointed towards the exposed power generator. "Over there, near that hole in the wall. Just pile all the computer stuff in here for now, and we'll sort it out later. Kitchenware also, I guess."

He looked over towards Raven and Changeling, and grinned. She could immediately sense that he was suspicious of them, and realized that she was standing a little too close to Changeling. Cyborg just shook his head. "Don't panic, Rae. I sorta figured it would happen sooner or later."

Nightwing sighed, resisting the urge to smack Cyborg for being so obvious. "Come on, Vic. Leave them alone, we've got work to do."

"Yeah, yeah." The workmen followed Cyborg and Nightwing back down the stairs, going back for another load of equipment.

Changeling grinned. "Well, what now?"

Raven smiled. "Now that we've started to fix the team, we need to fix the tower. We should go help them."

"What about..."

She could hear the unspoken question. "I don't know what to do about... us, whatever that means. We'll figure it out later. Besides, I'm the leader. I could just order you to do whatever I want."

He shrugged, smiling. "Like you'd have to be leader to do that."

She shook her head, smiling at his joking manner. Despite her complaining, she'd missed the glow of life from the tower. She'd missed the joking, the small fights, the arguments, friendship, and love that the Titans shared. Things were far from perfect, but they were certainly better than they had been a few days ago. She didn't fear that she would be abandoned anymore, and she was feeling stronger by the minute, both physically and mentally. She felt Changeling's uncertainty about how to act around her, and took the leadership by reaching out and taking his hand.

Together, they walked forward, to finish repairing the tower and the team. Despite the long separation, despite the loss of their friendship, and the darkness that had settled over the city, the Titans were still Titans. They were older, and times were hard, but Raven felt a strange optimism that things would get better. She wasn't used to optimism. Still, with her hand around Changeling's, and the other Titans' auras nearby, she knew that they would stay.

They were the Titans. Now, they would be again.

She smiled, and holding Changeling's hand, stepped through the door.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading! Hopefully that last bit wasn't too sappy. I hope you've enjoyed Five Years Later. Review if you liked it, or if you really didn't. Hopefully I'll be writing more soon. Thanks again for reading. 


	6. The Titans Epilogue

Review Responses:

kweandee: Here's the epilogue, a bit quickly for this fic. Hope you enjoy it.

SxStrngSamurai13: I'm glad you enjoyed the fic. Hopefully the epilogue treats you as well. I tried to keep things tense in chapter five, as the team still has a lot of issues with each other. Raven is leader almost by default, as everyone else has an affiliation with either Nightwing or Cyborg, and so she's really the only choice. Hope you enjoy the epilogue.

Kevorkian: That's very high praise. Thank you. I hope you're still around and I hope you like this chapter as well.

Tails-Coyote-Carnivore: Thanks! Hope you like the epilogue as well.

bbissocute: Thank you! I'm glad you like the fic. Here's the epilogue!

dr.evil99: We've spoken about your review on AIM, so I'll keep it short here. I know you've been looking forwards to the epilogue, and I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Toran of Raysed: I don't like it when Raven is somehow able to be able to love fully and effortlessly, after a lifetime of emotional suppression. Anyway, glad you are liking the fic. Here's the epilogue.

* * *

A/N: This is the epilogue for Five Years Later. I wanted to show how the team worked together in this setting, as well as showing a bit of the team dynamic after reforming. Plus, I like the setting and wanted to keep writing. Enjoy!

* * *

The lock was proving extremely difficult to bypass, and the man's concentration was not being helped by the thick and brutish voice from the other side. "Hurry it th' 'ell up! It's friggin' cold out here!"

"Shut your scraggin' hole, I'm working as fast as I can!" Gizmo's fingers were small, and that made tasks that required manual dexterity a bit easier, but not effortless. Still, he was more than just skilled at this sort of work, and a few more seconds saw the door clicking open. A large hand grabbed the side of the door and pulled it open quickly, revealing a nearly nine foot tall, walking tank of a man, and a smaller, svelte, black-suited man beside him. They both entered quickly, and Mammoth pushed the door shut behind him. It was soon temporarily locked again, with a glowing X across the opening.

Red X switched off his sonic dissipater to conserve power. This also had the side effect of allowing him to speak again. "We need to get in, get the money, and leave. I know you don't put stock in rumors, but I don't like what I've been hearing lately."

Gizmo typed on the nearby security console while he spoke. "What? About the Titans being back together? It's scrimpin' lies. They hate each other. They've even stopped fighting us to attack themselves before."

"Yeah, dey aren't gonna get back together. Ain't gonna happen." Mammoth seemed impatient, tapping his foot while waiting for Gizmo to crack the laser security system on the bank vault.

Red X frowned, activating his Roentgen sights, and scanning the street outside. "Look, I know you think they won't ever get over Jinx, but-urkgk!"

Mammoth's huge hand pressed Red X to the sealed door, as two fingers and his thumb closed around his neck and cut off his breathing. His voice was serious and angry. "I told you before, you don't talk about dat."

Red X struggled against Mammoth's strength with no effect, and his hand was pinning Red X's arms to the door as well, blocking any useful gadgetry. The fringes of his vision were full of sparks and flashes, as he tried to force his lungs to pull in air.

A few seconds later, seconds that seemed to last hours for Red X, Gizmo muttered. "Let him down, Mammoth; we need him."

Red X collapsed to the floor as Mammoth released him. The huge man looked down at him. "I'm not tellin' you again."

Gizmo spoke, as Red X choked and gasped on the floor. "Alright... one second, and... done. One ancient computer system hacked. Here goes."

One more keystroke, and the lasers flashed visible once, in an intricate and tightly woven web, before disappearing again, deactivated.

The crime wasn't a complex plan. The lasers were guarding the shipping company's cash vault. Nothing but a simple smash and grab, of a few hundred thousand in unmarked twenties and fifties. Mammoth crossed the room quickly, and looked at the vault door, gauging it's strength, as well as it's weak points. Gizmo wasn't so good with combination locks, as the mechanisms were too hidden.

Mammoth showed his normal aptitude for bypassing heavy locks, as he dug his fingers into the carbon-steel door, and pulled it whole from the hinges, tossing the two ton vault door to the floor nearby, forcing Red X to dodge out of the way to avoid a messy death. Mammoth looked inside, frowning at the electrified money case. The lowered security of the docks district had made it easier for supervillains to avoid police interference, but had increased the larger corporations' internal defenses against theft.

"ey, X. Take dis out." Mammoth pointed towards the electrified case.

X walked over to the entrance, keeping his distance from Mammoth as much as he was able, and readied an EMP charge from his belt. Gizmo was squinting at something in the vault, but X ignored him, throwing the device just as Gizmo realized what he was looking at. "Wait!"

The EMP charge impacted the side of the case, and detonated, dispelling the electrical field. However, immediately after the field dropped, a piercingly loud alarm broke out. All three thieves grabbed their ears, wincing from the sudden noise. Mammoth was the first to recover, storming into the room and grabbing the case, lifting the large metal container almost effortlessly. He ran for the exterior door, and Red X pressed a switch on his belt, causing the locking mechanism he'd placed there to dissipate. Mammoth kicked the door open, and ran out into the street.

Red X ran into the back of the man, as he stopped suddenly. Gizmo took a slightly more graceful path, whizzing sideways and upwards on his jetpack, hovering next to Mammoth. "Oh, fraggin' hell."

On the rooftop of the shop on the other side of the street stood five familiar figures. There was a strange air about them, of hope and determination. They looked almost happy to see the criminals pour out of the building. Changeling grinned, and elbowed the blue-cloaked girl next to him. She half-smirked as well, and spoke two words, sounding as if she hadn't said them before.

"Titans, Go!"

* * *

Changeling couldn't help but be amused at the expressions on Mammoth and Gizmo's faces when they'd spotted the team together again. The pair, switching in and out third members from time to time, had enjoyed moderate success since the split. Seeing all of them together again must be really disheartening. When Raven spoke, however, the team didn't leave time for amusement and jokes. She spoke, and they moved. 

He could almost feel his hair singe as Starfire blew past him, driving straight towards Mammoth, her eyes and hands ablaze with power already. He changed quickly, storming towards the empty space between Gizmo and Mammoth, batting the small man out of the air with his ape paw, and clutching the invisible Red X, aided by the telepathic outline sent from Raven.

The vault building shuddered and partially collapsed as Starfire's charge drove her and Mammoth into a support column. Changeling reeled around quickly, throwing Red X across the street, and against the store that the Titans had been standing on. The cloaked villain smashed through the glass storefront, and collided with a shelf full of magazines inside, falling to the ground dazed. Laser fire suddenly tore down from the air above him, and Changeling growled loudly as a line of light grazed his arm, searing the fur and some of the flesh from it. He didn't have time to retaliate, however, as a blue beam of sonic energy smashed Gizmo sideways, the vibrations from the noise disabling his laser cannon.

Cyborg maintained his position near Raven, guarding her and watching the action from the highground. Nightwing was inside the store, fighting hand to hand with Red X. Changeling dodged quickly to the side again as Starfire blew past him a second time. However, this time she wasn't in control, smashing into the street as Mammoth tore out of the building rubble. The huge man yelled belligerently and incoherently, attacking the first thing he saw, which happened to be Changeling.

Mammoth charged violently, and Changeling only had time to set himself and try to stop him. His strength, even in his current form, was nowhere near Mammoth's, however. The pavement cracked beneath him as Mammoth slammed into him, knocking him down and pinning him to the ground. The large bruiser raised his fist and punched, and Changeling dodged just enough that he missed taking his head clean off. Raven's telepathic reassurance helped Changeling keep fighting for the extra two seconds before the black-encased car smashed into Mammoth's side and barreled him into the building again.

(Help Starfire.) The message was succinct, but he felt a telepathic nudge that she was above him. He changed into a condor and took flight, sailing towards Starfire, who was dodging missiles and lasers being fired almost wildly from Gizmo. He changed again, becoming a hummingbird, and far too nimble for Gizmo to ever hit. A few seconds later, he had reached the panicked villain undetected. He landed on Gizmo's bald head, and immediately changed again, into a Velociraptor.

The extra weight made Gizmo's flight motors fail, and they both fell like rocks. Changeling's powerful legs absorbed most of the shock of the fall, but Gizmo's shoulder wasn't built the same way, and just cracked as he landed. His shouting confirmed that he was pretty much out of the fight. Using his talons, Changeling stripped away the computer core on the man's back. A black shape caught his eye, as Raven teleported to him. Her hands glowed as she pressed them to the defeated Gizmo's shoulder. "I'll quiet him. Go help with Mammoth."

Changeling turned, looking back towards the center of the battle. Red X seemed to be unconscious, tied up with a de-cel line in front of the ruined store. Starfire was leaning up against a column, looking dazed while Nightwing was cleaning and dressing a nasty looking cut on her right thigh. Cyborg was mostly just trying to dodge Mammoth's angry swipes and punches. "Yo! BB! A little help?"

He put his leg strength to good use, pressing back before catapulting himself forty feet through the air and onto Mammoth's back. The man barely even reacted to the dinosaur's weight, but just reached around behind him and grabbed Changeling, throwing him before he could react. Cyborg tried to catch him, but his current form was too heavy, and they both were bowled backwards. Cyborg stood shakily, as Changeling shifted back to human form.

Mammoth slammed his fists into the street, nearly blind with rage. His voice was so loud that Changeling could feel the vibrations in the asphalt under him. "Murderer! You killed her!"

Cyborg grimaced fearfully. "Oh hell."

Mammoth's charge drove Cyborg into the storefront with enough force to buckle the structure entirely, collapsing it around the two. A black sphere surrounded the combatants before the rubble crushed them, and then expanded, shoving the debris away before dissipating. Mammoth pinned Cyborg, pressing his knee to the hero's stomach. He raised his arms and punched downwards, and Cyborg could do little but take the punishment, unable to lift the hulking madman off of him.

(Help him!) The telepathic plea was desperate. The punches sent shivers down the street as Changeling struggled to his feet, and then changed into an oversized ape again, charging along with Starfire. Between the two of them, they managed to pull Mammoth away from Cyborg, who thankfully had built enough armor into even his biological parts to stay alive during the assault. Changeling's eyes widened as he felt Mammoth shift his weight, and grab him by the head, swinging him sideways and clubbing Starfire with him. Changeling's weight was enough to send Starfire flying to the side, and both heroes went flying in a tangle. The attack also served to distract Mammoth for a moment, allowing the thrown projectile from Nightwing to latch itself onto his back. A half-second later, it delivered it's five hundred kilovolt payload.

Mammoth yelled into the night as the arcs of electricity flowed over his body. He regained control enough to reach behind him and tear off the device, before turning towards Nightwing. Breathing heavily, he took an unbalanced step forwards, gritting his teeth. He stopped as the black shape appeared in front of him. Mammoth seemed too dazed by the electrical attack to respond quickly enough. Raven stepped forwards, gently pressing her hand to his forehead. Her eyes glowed as she spoke quietly. "Sleep."

The man crumpled to the ground, the mental coercion working flawlessly. Cyborg pulled himself to standing, the nanorobots in his bloodstream already repairing his damage. Changeling untangled himself from Starfire, and stood, as Nightwing helped the alien up as well. The Titans looked at each other, bruised and battered from the combat, and grinned.

They were back.

* * *

Police sirens wailed in the night, as Nightwing and Cyborg secured Mammoth and Gizmo. The docks may not be the safest place in town, but reports of heavy metahuman combat always brought the authorities to the scene. Changeling tried to stay out of the way, walking over to Raven. "Hey, so that went pretty well." 

Raven nodded. "Yes. It wasn't perfect, and there's always room for improvement, but we did win."

"Gonna let Nightwing talk to the cops?"

"Yes. He's more experienced in that regard and has a rapport with most of the force at this point."

The Jump City police department arrived in only a few minutes, and in such force that Changeling had to assume that they were mostly there to see the Titans again, rather than to actually stop any sort of crime. The fact that Chief of Police Bronsky was present sort of cleared all doubt. Seeing him chatting amicably with Nightwing made Changeling a bit more relaxed. It seemed like no one was going to question the two fugitives on the team. He decided to take a chance and go see what they were talking about.

"Yes, Rick. We're back together for at least the time being. You've seen the materials and workmen coming to the tower for the past two weeks, and it's getting close to being finished. The Titans should be back in earnest shortly." Nightwing had a strange demeanor when he spoke to authority figures.

Police Chief Bronsky, or 'Rick' as Nightwing apparently felt comfortable calling him, seemed to be relieved that the Titans were reforming, though he seemed to be trying to hide his emotions behind a layer of official jargon and legally indifferent terminology. "Although I can't officially support vigilantism, your efforts as concerned citizens are appreciated."

He glanced at Changeling, the turned to Nightwing again. "Along the lines of my duties as Chief of Police, I must inform you that due to the nature of metahuman abilities and the inconsistencies that come from the sort of activities you engage in, we have no way to be assured that the people on your team are the same Garfield Logan and Victor Stone that have been declared fugitive. Until some concrete and undeniable evidence is shown that they are the same people, the law in Jump City will have to assume that they are not the fugitives that we've been seeking. Do you have any such evidence?"

Nightwing shook his head. "I have no such evidence on hand, Rick."

Another man brushed his way past the police around the scene. He was a tall, somewhat heavily built man, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a blue blazer, and a press pass. Changeling stepped aside, trying to avoid contact with the newspaper reporters as much as possible. "Ah, Mr. Nightwing, a moment of your time?"

Turning towards the man, Nightwing nodded. "Yes?"

"Clark Kent, Daily Planet. Any truth to the rumors that the Teen Titans are reforming?"

Nightwing's eyes widened for a second, but he regained his composure quickly. Something was still off about his voice, however. "Uh, Well, we're not teenagers anymore, but yes. The Titans are coming back. Ah, due to a generous grant from the Wayne Foundation, our Tower is being rebuilt as well."

Changeling left the area, heading back towards Raven with a grin on his lips. "Heh. I think Nightwing is out of practice. He's completely flustered with the press."

Raven's eyes glowed white for a moment, as she looked over towards the reporter, who was still interviewing Nightwing. He noticeably glanced back at her, and she jumped slightly, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. Her eyes faded, but she seemed to hesitate a moment. "There's a reason for that. I'll... tell you back at the tower."

Changeling laughed. "Dude, I wish I was a mind reader." He put his arm around Raven's shoulders, and smiled at her. "So what do you think? After your first fight, are you going to stay leader?"

She pulled away slightly, moving his arm from her, while glancing at the reporters that were gathering nearby. "Of course. We wouldn't be able to agree on anyone else."

Cyborg and Starfire joined them, as the Special Crimes Unit took control of the unconscious villains. "Nice work, Rae. You did good."

"Yes, very well done. I had every confidence you in as a leader." Starfire smiled, something that was happening more often recently.

Raven nodded. "Thank you, but we would have won even without a leader. You all knew what you were doing."

Starfire looked over towards Nightwing, who was fielding questions from the dozens of reporters that had gathered. "I believe Nightwing is a bit overwhelmed. I did not realize that the Titans regrouping would be such an event."

Nightwing turned towards the team, and gestured for them to come over and join him. Changeling sighed. "Time to go pose for the cameras. Are you up to this, Raven?"

Raven nodded, though she pulled her hood up over her head as she did so. She wasn't starving any longer, but she was still visibly gaunt, and did not relish answering questions about it. "Let's go."

* * *

The impromptu press conference lasted nearly an hour before the Titans could get away. Back at the Tower, they had briefly celebrated their first victory as a team again, with champagne that Cyborg had stashed somewhere. Still, it wasn't long before the more practical concerns caused them to split up for the moment, Nightwing and Cyborg examining the work that had been done on the tower that day, while Starfire set herself to the task of cooking some food for everyone. 

Raven, followed by Changeling, left the operations room, headed towards her bedroom. The two walked in silence, beside one another, down the corridor. It was amazing how much progress had been made in the repairs over the past two weeks. The hallway was well lit now, and the floor no longer felt as though it would collapse at any time. They stopped at Raven's door. She turned towards Changeling, and smiled slightly. "They followed me. Even Nightwing. They actually listened to me."

Changeling grinned. "Of course they did. You're the leader. We have to."

She stepped towards him, and leaned against him as he put his arms around her. She looked up at him. "I'm sorry for pulling away back there, but we can't act like we are dating in front of the press. The public is suspicious enough of us, and the press doesn't need anything else to focus on. Starfire's figure already makes parents nervous that their kids like us."

He squeezed her gently. "Hey, it's fine. It's kind of fun to see Starfire wanting to be close to Dick, but keeping herself away. On the topic of figures, no one asked about yours. Maybe it's not so obvious as you think."

She shook her head. "It is, but I suppressed their curiosity. They are all probably wondering why they didn't think to ask. I just don't want to explain it to them right now."

Changeling laughed, and Raven couldn't help but smile. "By the time we have another fight, you'll probably be back to your old self. You've been eating enough to feed three people."

"I'm not sure that any girl wants to hear something like that."

"You know what I mean."

They stood in silence for a few moments, holding one another in the hallway. Raven smiled, feeling secure and safe with Changeling, as well as the Titans. The past two weeks had gone quickly, but the group was already acting like a team again. There was still some resentment, and Raven had not been above noticing that the previous partnerships had been evident in the fighting earlier in the day, but when things were calm, the Titans were able to talk and laugh like the old friends that they were.

Raven felt oddly optimistic. It seemed as though, with enough time, the Titans would actually be the Titans again. She looked down at Changeling's chest as she held him. There would be some differences from the way things used to be, but she could handle them. For the first time in years, Raven found herself waking up each morning looking forwards to the rest of the day. It was a wonderful feeling, and she knew that her long period of misery and solitude was finally over.

A strange, vaguely sour aroma floated down the hallway, and Changeling laughed. "Smells like Star is cooking. Want to go help me fix a... uh... 'side dish' for the rest of us to eat?"

Raven shook her head, pulling out of his embrace regretfully. "No, I need to meditate. The combat with the Hive and the interrogation of the press has left me drained."

He grinned, and nodded. "Ok, Raven. I'll come get you when dinner is ready."

He leaned in and kissed her, just a peck on the lips. She smiled. "Yes, see you then."

* * *

A/N: Finished! Life goes on for the Titans, and hopefully in a happier direction than the previous few years. To be honest, this setting sorta interests me, and I may write another fic at some point in the future that is set after this one in the same setting. Not a sequel in the strictest sense, but more like another 'episode'. Anyway, Review if you liked it or didn't! See you in my next fic! 


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